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PRESENT STATE 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 AND OF THE 
 
 MISSIONARY ESTABLISHMENTS 
 
 FOR ITS 
 
 PROPAGATION 
 IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORJ.K 
 
 EDITED 
 
 BY FREDERIC SH 
 
 v* 
 
 Che diffusion of Christianity is at the same time the diffusion of knotf 
 dge, civilization, and moral freedom. — Introduction. 
 
 iltiu-rnvk: 
 
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 >R COLLINS AND IIANNAY, COLLINS AND CO., G. AND C. CARVILI 
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 PHIA, CAREY, LEA. AND CAREY, AND JOHN GRinr;. 
 
 1 828. 
 
TO THE 
 
 PATRONS, directors, and members 
 
 OF ALL THE 
 
 BENEFICENT SOCIETIES 
 
 ENGAGED IN THE HOLY WORK OF DIFFUSING 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 AND THE ATTENDANT BLESSINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 < IVILIZATION AND KNOWLEDGE 
 
 AMONG THE 
 
 NATIONS OF THE EARTH. 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 
 
 F. SHOBERL 
 
IHCB 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In a country distinguished above all others by 
 the strenuous efforts of numerous Societies, and 
 by the liberal pecuniary contributions of indivi- 
 duals, for the propagation of Christianity in all 
 parts of the world, any recommendation of a book 
 chiefly designed to exhibit the effects of those 
 efforts would be almost superfluous. Some reflec- 
 tions on the importance of this object will, how~ 
 ever, be found in the Introduction, to which the 
 reader is referred. It will, therefore, be unneces- 
 sary for me to solicit more than a moment's atten- 
 tion here, for the purpose of explaining the nature 
 of my participation in this volume. 
 
 Justice requires the acknowledgment that the 
 groundwork was furnished by a publication from 
 the pen of Mr. H. Zschokke, a well-known Ger- 
 man writer, many years resident in Switzerland, 
 whose numerous literary productions attest his 
 ardent desire to promote the best interests of man- 
 kind. Its first appearance was in the year 1819. 
 To complete his Sketch by supplying the events 
 worthy of record during the intermediate period 
 down to the present year, I have had recourse tc 
 
PREPACK. 
 
 the Reports of our principal Societies engaged in 
 the propagation of Christianity and in the circula- 
 tion of the Bible, and toother authentic materials 
 The additions which they have enabled me to make 
 I purposed at first to introduce in the form of 
 notes, to avoid interfering with the work of ano- 
 ther ; but, to spare the reader the inconvenience of 
 referring to and fro and the consequent unpleasant 
 interruption of the thread of the text, I have been 
 induced to forego that intention and to interweave 
 all such additions in their proper places. 
 
 If we have between us presented as accurate 
 and ample a picture of the subject as the narrow 
 limits of this volume would permit, to the Public. 
 it must be matter of the utmost indifference by 
 whom such or such passages have been contributed. 
 The enlightened author will not I trust have reason 
 to be ashamed of the partnership into which he has 
 been involuntarily brought; and if the work shall 
 prove the means of refreshing in one mind con- 
 victions of the divinity and eternal truth of Chris- 
 tianity — of removing one of the strong mutual 
 prejudices still cherished by many of the sects 
 professing the religion of Jesus — or of kindling in 
 one bosom an active zeal for the promotion oi 
 human happiness by the diffusion of the beneficent 
 doctrines inculcated by its founder — cordially shall 
 I congratulate myself on my humble co-operation 
 with the philanthropic foreigner. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag* 
 Introduction 13 
 
 PART I.— EUROPE. 
 
 Chapter I. — Diffusion of Christianity in the First Eight 
 
 Centuries 22 
 
 Chapter II. — Diffusion of the Faith to the Present Time 27 
 
 Chapter III. — Description of Lapland and Finland — Relics 
 of Ancient Paganism — Attempts to Convert the Roving 
 Tribes within the Polar Circle to Christianity 30 
 
 Chapter IV. — Conclusion 3S 
 
 PART II.— ASIA. 
 
 Shatter I. — Review of the First Diffusion and Subsequent 
 
 Suppression of Christianity in Asia 37 
 
 Chapter II. — State of the Christian Sects in Turkey in 
 Asia — Catholics, Greeks, Maronites, &c. — Their bar- 
 barism 40 
 
 Chapter III. — The Paganism of Siberia and the Russian 
 States — Defective Institutions for Conversion — Con- 
 ventual Schools — Missions 48 
 
 Chapter IV. — Attempts of the Jesuits and Capuchins in 
 Tibet — Resemblance of the Ecclesiastical System of 
 Lamaism to that of the Catholic and Greek Churches 58 
 
 Chapter V. — Religions in Japan— Severity towards the 
 
 Christians 63 
 
 Chapter VI. — State o( the Christian Congregations in the 
 
 Chinese Empire — Dissensions among the Missionaries 6G 
 
 Chapter VII. — Survey of Tunkin, Cochin China, and 
 
 the Birman Empire — The Palee Language 74 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Survey of Hindoostan — Former narrow- 
 minded Policy of the East India Company in regard to 
 Missions — Schwartz, the Missionary — State of the 
 Protestant and Catholic Missions — The Syrian Chris- 
 tians 86 
 
 Chapter IX. — The Persian Christians — ^Zabeans — Suffas IOC 
 
 Chapter X. — Ceylon and Java— State of Christianity in 
 
 the other large Asiatic Islands.., .... 109 
 
 Chapter XI. — General Observations on the Slow Progress 
 
 of Christianity in Asia J 2; 
 
Ill CONTENTS. 
 
 PART III.— AFRICA. 
 
 Pagt 
 Chapter I. — Rise and Decline of Christianity in this quar- 
 ter of the Globe 123 
 
 Chapter II.— Present Christian Sects in Egypt 134 
 
 Chapter III.— The Jacobites in Abyssinia— Fruitless At- 
 tempts of the Catholics to establish Missions 137 
 
 Chapter IV. — East Coast of Africa — Madagascar— Isle of 
 
 Bourbon 142 
 
 Chapter V. — Cape of Good Hope— Protestant Missions 
 
 for the Conversion of the Hottentots, Caffres, &c 140 
 
 Chapter VI.— The West Coast of Africa— Congo— Loango 154 
 Chapter VII. — Guinea — Sierra Leone— Christianity of 
 
 Gambia 15C 
 
 Chapter VIII.— The West African Islands 16S 
 
 PART IV.— AMERICA. 
 
 Chapter I. — Introduction of Christianity in America — Las 
 
 Casas 170 
 
 Chapter II. — Lost Christianity on the East Coast of 
 Greenland — The Venerable Hans Egede — the Breth- 
 ren's Congregations in Greenland 172 
 
 Chapter III. — The Missions in Labrador — Paganism in 
 
 the extreme North of America 17S 
 
 Chapter IV. — Survey of the Two Canadas — Astonishing 
 Progress of Religion and Civilization among the Savage 
 Tribes in and near the United States and the Spanish 
 Territories in North America 184 
 
 Chapter V. — Spirit of Conversion in Spanish North Ame- 
 rica — The Californians — Their Religious Notions l9Li 
 
 Chapter VI. — The Spanish and Portuguese Possessions in 
 South America — Empire of the Jesuits on the Uraguay 
 — Slow Progress of Christianity of late years 202 
 
 Chapter VII. — Survey of Brazil and Guiana 212 
 
 Chatter VI II. — The West India Islands — Negro Slaves — 
 The Empire of the Blacks in Hayti — Activity of the 
 Protestant Missionaries in the British and Danish 
 Islands 210 
 
 '."hatter IX. — General Observations on the Diffusion of 
 
 Christianity in America 220 
 
 PART V.— SOUTH INDIA. 
 
 Chapter I. — New Holland— First Christian Settlement in 
 
 New Zealand 287 
 
 Chatter II. — Conversion of the Society Islanders to 
 Christianity — Survey of the Friendly and Sandwich 
 Islands 23S 
 
 Chapter HI.— Conclusion 253 
 
SURVEY 
 
 OF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The superiority of the Europeans in arts, sciences, and 
 civil institutions, is not by any means to be ascribed to the 
 influence of their soil and climate. This part of the globe 
 was one vast Scythia, long after India, China, Persia, Syria, 
 Asia Minor, Egypt, and Greece, were distinguished for 
 knowledge, industry, and civilization. But, after the pro- 
 digious wars and the successive invasions of migratory 
 barbarians, it rose far above the Asiatic and African states, 
 because it had embraced Christianity. In the East the 
 human mind appears, amid the wreck of what has been, 
 in a state of deplorable torpor, bowed down by servitude 
 and despotism. 
 
 Had the doctrine of the Messiah pursued its course towards 
 the east or south, instead of spreading to the west and 
 north, who knows whether at this day those regions might 
 not be occupied by the most polished nations of the globe, 
 while we should be half-savages in comparison with them ? 
 To what cause was it owing that Creece, Asia, Egypt, and 
 Carthage, after being crushed by barbarian invaders, did not 
 rise again so speedily and so buoyantly as Italy, Gaul, and 
 the south of Germany ? — There, Mongols and Muhame- 
 dans terminated the universal revolution ; but the conquer- 
 ors of Italy, Gaul, and Germany, the Goths, Lombard- 
 and Franks, were already Christians. 
 
14 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 As far as we know, there never yet existed a nation 
 without some reverence for the supernatural. Even the 
 polytheists and idolaters, who, with rude simplicity, adore 
 the power of a Supreme Being under images made with 
 their own hands, or in the splendour of certain natural 
 phenomena— even these reverence, fear, and love, what 
 we do. 
 
 With the origin of nations and states arose many differ- 
 ent notions of heavenly things. But that which Christ 
 imparted to mankind is the most perfect and the most sa- 
 cred, because it harmonizes as completely with the econo- 
 my of Nature as with the eternal laws of the spiritual 
 world ; it is, therefore, adapted to all countries and to all 
 ages ; it cannot be improved by any human wisdom or in- 
 genuity, legislation or form of government ; but, on the 
 other hand, it refines, ennobles, and communicates its di- 
 vine spirit to the ideas of philosophers, lawgivers, moralists, 
 and politicians. It is the root and stock of all religions — 
 the highest and the holiest, upon which all of them are 
 founded. Hence it fills the mind with pure images of the 
 all-perfect Being and with longing after hirn. Hence it 
 stimulates to the cultivation of the sciences ; and these 
 again, by a grateful reaction, divest the doctrine of its di- 
 vine author of human deformities, and of the inventions 
 of ignorance, fanaticism, and priestly love of rule. 
 
 The diffusion of Christianity — not merely of its church- 
 ceremonies— is at the same time Jiifusion of knowledge, 
 civilization, and moral freedom. We cannot, therefore, 
 be friends to our kind, friends to reason, without ardently 
 wishing tor the extension of the all-glorifying kingdom 
 of God, and beholding with transport the ennobling of our 
 race in every region under heaven. 
 
 The late excellent Dr. Milne, in his " Retrospect of 
 the First Ten Years of ihe Protestant Mission to China," 
 in which he spent the latter part of his life, has so ably ex- 
 hibited, in a short compass, the admirable adaptation of 
 the Christian religion to the character and circumstances 
 of the whole human race, that I cannot forbear transcribing 
 his words : — 
 
 " Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, is the 
 only religion which is in all respects adapted to the mora) 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 5 
 
 state of the whole world ; hence it possesses an indisputable 
 and unrivalled claim to universal preference. The positive 
 declarations of its divine author prove it to be intended for 
 the whole family of man ; and its doctrines, precepts, and 
 ritual, all unite to declare its suitableness to the internal cha- 
 racter and external circumstances of sinful creatures in 
 every state of society and in every part of the earth. 
 
 " Its doctrines, though in some particulars above the 
 comprehension of man in the present infancy of his being, 
 areyetremark;iblv adapted to exercise his intellectual facul- 
 ties and all in perfect conformity with the dictates of sound 
 reason. Their unequalled sublimity imparts an elevated 
 character to the mind, which the utmost refinements of 
 human wisdom could never produce. Their certainty 
 brings the world out of that maze of end less perplexities, 
 in which the best and most enlightened pagan ^ages wan- 
 dered, and led after thern the blinded multitude. The 
 powerful support which the doctrines of Christianity afford 
 to the hopes of the guilty pacifies the conscience, purifies 
 the heart, and gladdens the countenance. Their greatness 
 enlarges the soul and raises it to God ; while their fulness 
 and variety furnish endless topics of thought and exhaust- 
 less sources of pleasure. Most of them are easily under- 
 stood, and they aroAill of consolation to the truly penitent 
 and to the upright in heart. 
 
 " Its precepts are all simple, holy, reasonable, and 
 useful to man in every capacity and in every relation of 
 life ; and man's dependence on the Supreme Being, his 
 circumstanees in the world, the desires of his immortal 
 nature, and the testimony of his conscience, all prove it 
 to be both his duty and his interest to obey. 
 
 " Its ritual is neither complicated, expensive, nor irk- 
 some. Christianity can be carried to all parts of the 
 world, and observed just as well where neither gold, silver, 
 gems, nor materials for costly array exist, as where they 
 are found in the richest abundance. It enjoins no uni- 
 formity of dress, no vexatious peculiarities in the gait, 
 gestures, and postures, of its worshippers ; no magnifi- 
 cent temples or expensive apparatus for the celebration of 
 divine ordinances ; no technical shibboleth to charac- 
 terize the doctrines of the followers of Jesus, Simpli 
 
1G SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 utyand utility are the characteristics of its observances. 
 Piety, truth, justice, purity, peaceableness, benevolence, 
 and usefulness of life, are the only marks by which it re- 
 quires the servants of God to distinguish themselves from 
 the world ' which lieth in wickedness.' 
 
 " Christianity claims the world ns the sphere of its 
 operations ; it knows no olher locality. It commands the 
 nations to give up nothi>.g but what is injurious for them 
 to retain, and proposes nothing for their acceptance but 
 what they are miserable without. It casts not slight on 
 any one country by exalting the virtues and glory of 
 another. It represents all people and nations as on a 
 level in the eyes of God — as equally offenders against 
 him, equally subject to the decisions of his awful justice, 
 and equally welcome to the benefits of his abundant 
 mercy, its moral and positive duties are equally binding 
 on all to whom the Gospel is made known ; its salvation 
 and privileges are open on the same terms to all who re- 
 ceive them, without distinction of age, rank, talent, or 
 country ; and its tremendous denunciations will be exe- 
 cuted on all who reject or abuse it, without partiality and 
 "without the possibility of appeal or escape 
 
 " It commands nothing inconsistent with the outward 
 condition of nations or individuals to perform , while it 
 contains the germ of every principle necessary to render the 
 throne stable, the nation prosperous, the family happy, the 
 individual virtuous, and the soul eternally blessed. Chris- 
 tianity is the only religion fitted for universal adoption, 
 and the only one capable of conducting the world to im- 
 mortal felicity. It is the duty of all who expect to be 
 saved by Christ to do their utmost for the extension of 
 Christian knowledge." 
 
 To the testimony of this eloquent servant of God I 
 shall subjoin a brief exposition of the beneficial effects 
 resulting from the efforts for the diffusion of Christianity, 
 by the Rev. Dr. Philip, the active superintendent of the 
 establishments of the London Missionary Society in 
 South Africa. 
 
 " In those countries where our missions have gained a 
 marked ascendancy, there is scarcely one spot, however 
 much secluded, impervious to their all-pervading light and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 jjeat. Even while they are grossly misrepresented and 
 spoken against, they are checking the undue exercise of 
 power ; raising the standard of morals ; literally pro- 
 claiming liberty to the captives, and opening the prison- 
 doors to those that are bound ; diffusing abroad the light 
 of science and literature ; undermining the false systems 
 of religion against which they have to contend ; multi- 
 plying those charitable institutions which have for their 
 object the relief of suffering humanity ; vanquishing infi- 
 delity by the most direct and powerful of all arguments, 
 by living exhibitions of the truths of Christianity ; chang- 
 ing the face of our colonies, and accelerating the ap- 
 proach of that moral revolution which will sooner or later 
 usher in the kingdoms of the world as the kingdom of 
 our Lord and his Christ." 
 
 After quoting these testimonies, it may perhaps be 
 deemed presumptuous in me to subjoin any further remark 
 in illustration of the excellence of that religion which 
 forms the subject of this volume. At the hazard, how- 
 ever, of incurring this censure, I shall add an observation, 
 which seems to me to deserve the serious attention alike 
 of the statesman, the philosopher, and the philanthropist, 
 
 One of the first and most important effects of Chris- 
 tianity is to elevate and ennoble the female character, and 
 to place woman in that station which she ought to hold 
 in society. She — who was destined to be the partner of 
 man, the depository of his thoughts, his solace in afflic- 
 tion, his counsellor in adversity and prosperity ; to sooth 
 him by the exercise of the kindliest affections at home for 
 the crosses and vexations which he has to encounter 
 abroad — she is reduced by the Savage to the level of the 
 slave, or even of the brutes which he has domesticated for 
 his service. Throughout the whole eastern world, by the 
 more polished professors of the doctrines of Muhamed, 
 of Buddha, and of Fohi, constituting a very great ma- 
 jority of the human race, woman is regarded as of inferior 
 nature to the other sex, by which she is held in profound 
 subjection, and treated as a being formed solely to minis- 
 ter to the passions, pleasures, and caprices, of her lord. 
 The religion of Christ calls her from this degraded state 
 to the equal participation in the privileges and enjoyment 4 
 
18 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of man ; it raises and refines his own character in the 
 same proportion as it inspires him with consideration for 
 hers — for where the character of woman is most respecta- 
 ble and respected, there we invariably find most public 
 virtue and private happiness. 
 
 The total number of human beings at present inhabit- 
 ing the globe is by some computed at between a thousand 
 and twelve hundred millions ; but, in a table, furnished 
 by a German publication, the Allgemeine Kirchenzeititng, 
 printed at Darmstadt, which appears to have been dili- 
 gently compiled from the most authentic sources, and ex- 
 hibits the population of the earth according to its differ- 
 ent religions, the total number of inhabitants is estimated 
 at eight hundred and twenty-eight millions. Of these 
 two hundred and thirty-five millions are computed to be 
 professors of Christianity ; two and a half millions Jews ; 
 one hundred and fifteen millions Muhamedans ; ten mil* 
 lions disciples of Zoroaster and Confucius ; while the 
 Polytheists, composed of Lamaites, Brahminists, Bud- 
 hists, and Fetish worshippers, amount to four hundred and 
 :-*ixty-six millions. What an immense field, then, is still 
 open for the most exalted species of beneficence ! 
 
 Europe has already rendered immense benefit to the 
 other portions of the globe, by the diffusion of the divine 
 revelations concerning the dearest interests of mankind. 
 For ages past, thousands of pious men have gone forth 
 into both the Indies to carry thither the light of Chris- 
 tianity. In many cities of Europe, considerable efforts 
 have been made for spreading civilization and the arts and 
 sciences in the remotest regions. In the Orphan-House, at 
 Halle, were trained teachers for the two Indies. Paris 
 and Naples instructed Arabs and Chinese. Russia made 
 frkutzk an academy for Tartars and Japanese. Rome 
 accomplished more than all the rest. Here the Congre- 
 gation for the Propagation of the Faith has, ever since 
 the seventeenth century, despatched into all the world 
 messengers of God, educated for this especial purpose, 
 "Works were printed in this congregation in more than 
 thirty languages, foreign to Europe. The Seminary far 
 the Diffusion of the Faith co-operated in its efforts, 
 which were emulated by the Congregation of the Priests 
 
INTRODUCTION. 10 
 
 of the Foreign Missions, the French Seminary for Mis- 
 sions to Foreign Nations, and the French Congregation 
 of St. Sacrament. 
 
 In all the Protestant world there were a few years since 
 but four or five Societies for the conversion of the heathen, 
 of which the church of England furnished two, and another 
 was the exemplary Society of the United Brethren. Now 
 the Church Missionary Society is added to those of the 
 United Church — the Church of Scotland has her Societies 
 — every principal denomination of Christians, not of the 
 established churches, has formed its own institution- — the 
 Protestants of the continent are uniting in a Missionary 
 Society, which is awakening an interest from Basle, the 
 seat of its deliberations, in all the countries round ; and the 
 fire is kindled in the American churches : — the Congre* 
 gational — the Presbyterian — the Baptist — the Methodist 
 Churches of the United States — are all acting with zeal in 
 the cause — and the whole Episcopal Church, with its nine 
 bishops, has recently formed a society for sending the Gos- 
 pel to the heathen of the American continent, and through- 
 out the world. 
 
 We witness also the rise of institutions around us, which 
 take up all the various departments of labour for ultimately 
 rendering the earth one great garden of God. Missionary 
 Societies break up the ground and prepare the seed — Bible 
 Societies multiply that seed and scatter it, by the hands 
 of the missionary and other labourers, all over the world — 
 Jews' Societies are training the most irrefragable witnesses, 
 and probably the most successful preachers of the divine 
 word — Education Societies are giving a powerful im- 
 pulse to that universal instruction which is to prepare 
 readers of the word — Tract Societies are calling the 
 attention of men to that word — and the primitive and apos- 
 tolic Liturgy of the English Church is teaching multitudes 
 in what manner to worship Jehovah. 
 
 The importance of the operations of some of these So- 
 cieties may be inferred from the following authentic state- 
 ments : — 
 
 The Church Missionary Society had, in 1827, in its 
 nine Missions, in the Mediterranean, West Africa, Cal 
 cutta and North India, Madras and South India, Bombay 
 
20 SURVEY O? CHRISTIANITY , 
 
 and Western India, Ceylon, Australasia, West Indies, and 
 North West America, 54 stations, with which are connected 
 286 schools. All these stations? employ 458 labourers, of 
 •whom 124 are Europeans and 334 born in the respective 
 countries where they are employed. In the schools there 
 are 13,447 scholars, 9,47!* of whom arc boys, 3.08b' girls. 
 and 882 adults. Many churches have been built; and at 
 some of the principal stations printing-presses have been 
 established, from which the Scriptures, Liturgy, and reli- 
 gious tracts, are issued in large numbers. 
 
 This Society has founded at Islington, near London, a 
 seminary for preparing and training missionaries, in which 
 there were at the same period thirty-one students. The 
 first examination took place in July, 1827 ; and it has 
 been determined to enlarge the buildings for the accommo- 
 dation of fifty students. . 
 
 The gross receipts of the same Society for the year end- 
 ing May, 1827, including the contributions to the Institu- 
 tion at Islington, fell very little short of 46,000/. The net 
 income available to the general purposes of the Society, 
 during the same period, was nearly 43.300/., and the ex- 
 penditure 40,470/. 
 
 The London Missionary Society has stations in many 
 of the South Sea Islands, at Malacca and in Java, in most 
 of the principal cities in British Hindoostan, in Siberia, in 
 the Mediterranean, in South Africa, both within and 
 beyond the Colony of the Cape, in Madagascar and Mau- 
 ritius, and at Deinerara and Berbice, in the West Indies ; 
 in which are employed nearly one hundred European mis- 
 sionaries and assistants, besides native teachers. The con- 
 tributions to this Society, in the year ending March, 1827, 
 amounted to nearly 33, /00/., an.i the disbursements during 
 the same period to upwards of 43, )00/. 
 
 The British and Foreign Bible Society, from its estab- 
 lishment in 1801, to March, 18 -7, had issued upwards of 
 5,200,000 Bibles and New Testaments. In this number 
 are comprehended forty-two re-prints, five re-translations, 
 fifty-seven languages and dialects in which the Scriptures 
 had not been printed before the institution of the Society, 
 and forty-three new translations in progress. The total 
 receipts of the Society during the year preceding March. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 1827, were little less than 100.0' OZ., ami the 9ums paid 
 for translating and printing amounted to nearly 63,000/.. 
 When it is recollected that these and all the other So- 
 cieties established for the propagation of Christianity are 
 entirely supported by voluntary contributions, it must be 
 admitted that their pious and benevolent efforts for the im- 
 provement of the human species constitute one of the most 
 admirable traits in the picture of the present age. The 
 attempt, therefore, imperfect as it may be, to delineate 
 the present state of Christianity in the different regions of 
 the globe, can scarcely fail to prov*. an acceptable offering 
 to many ; I am certain, at least, that it would be difficult 
 to find one possessing stronger claims to the consideratioTs 
 of every enlightened observer. 
 
PART THE FIRST. 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIKST EIGHT 
 CENTURIES. 
 
 It is not more difficult to point out the finger of God in 
 the wonders of history than in the wonders of Nature. 
 
 The three years in which Christ, poor and despised, 
 preached his doctrine among a poor and despised people, 
 were incontestably the most suitable epoch for the purpose 
 in the six thousand years to which our historical records 
 extend. We are not less astonished at the subsequent 
 concatenation and power of circumstances, that wisely cal- 
 culated game of accidents, ifyou choose to term it so, which 
 developed the seed of the Gospel of Christ into a tree of 
 life for numberless tribes and nations. Antiquated thrones 
 and religions of the time, victors and vanquished, nations 
 issuing from unknown wilds, submitted at length to become 
 but instruments in an invisible, irresistible hand, for the 
 accomplishment of the great work for which Christ was 
 destined to bleed on Golgotha. But this is not the proper 
 place to pursue that mysterious topic. 
 
 The few individuals who went forth from the school of 
 Jesus carried, it is well known, the light which they re- 
 ceived from him, with equally astonishing courage and 
 success, from Jerusalem into the neighbouring and re- 
 moter countries. They conveyed it through Syria, Phoeni- 
 cia, and the rest of Asia Minor, to Greece and Italy. 
 
EUROrE. &b 
 
 Whether Mark imparted it to the Egyptians, and Thomas 
 or Andrew to the interior of Asia, we know not : but 
 the traditions preserved by the oldest ecclesiastical histo- 
 rians arc not improbable. So early as the second cen- 
 tury of our era, Justin Martyr exulted, though indeed 
 rather prematurely, in these terms : — u There is not a 
 tribe, either among the Greeks or foreigners, even among 
 those that live without any permanent places of abode, 
 by whom praise and thanksgiving are not offered to the 
 Father and Creator of the universe, in the name of the 
 crucified Jesus." 
 
 The sublime perspicuity and simplicity of the new re- 
 ligion, the persuasive force with which it addresses itself 
 to all minds, the purity of life and the contempt of death 
 manifested by its first professors, soon gained it numerous 
 friends. Besides the urgency of the times and the unity 
 of the empire of the world, of which Rome was the heart, 
 the removal of the legions of the Ctesars, now transported 
 from Asia to Africa, and presently from Africa to Eu- 
 rope, certainly contributed not a little to the diffusion of 
 Christianity. Many of the soldiers who had no home but 
 the conquered world, and who found, beyond the frontier 
 of every new state, new deities and new forms of worship, 
 could not fail to imbibe at length a thorough contempt 
 for these religious absurdities. Unbelief began al Rome 
 with the return of the armies from remote provinces of 
 the empire. 
 
 But the notion of higher supernatural beings was not 
 extinguished in the bosoms of men together with the re- 
 verence for the ancient mythology. The well-informed 
 warrior, at home in every part of the world, needed a 
 God independent of the narrow limits of countries, and a 
 faith independent of the priesthood of the nations. What 
 he had an obscure feeling of was rendered clear to him 
 by the simple doctrine of Jesus. What he learned of 
 this doctrine in Asia, Egypt, or Greece, he communicated 
 to others in Gaul and Britain. 
 
 It is not improbable that in this manner Christianity 
 was partially introduced, or that at least the way was 
 paved for it among the nations of Europe. We know 
 that the orthodox bishops of Britain afterwards found in 
 
24 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Scottish Highlands a sort of Christians who knew 
 nothing of the Pope and of the Roman Catholic dogmas. 
 Neither is it unlikely that the doctrine of John the Baptist 
 was carried by the legions, or even by merchants, from the 
 banks of Jordan into far distant countries. For, if we 
 may give any credit to the most anden-t records and the 
 symbolical customs of the Freemasons, we shall find that 
 these people in their assemblies and lodges seem to have 
 long known nothing of Christ and of the Cross, but that, 
 besides retaining the pagan libation — Funde merum Ge~ 
 nio ! — they talked much of Pythagoras and still more 
 about John. 
 
 In the third century there existed a great number of 
 Christian congregations, as well in western Asia and 
 North Africa as on the European coasts of the Mediterra- 
 nean. The sacred Scriptures of Christendom were cir- 
 culated both in Latin and in Syrian, Egyptian, and Ethio- 
 pia translations The indifference or partiality of indi- 
 vidual emperors or local authorities to the votaries of the 
 new religion afforded time for the establishment and diffu- 
 sion of its principles. The impolicy of particular perse- 
 cutions raised against it tended still more to produce this 
 effect. But for these persecutions the first holy ardour 
 Would perhaps speedily have cooled. Now, however, 
 exiles carried with them the opinions for which they suf- 
 fered to countries where they were yet unknown. The 
 confidence and fortitude of individual martyrs now in- 
 spired the other Christians with enthusiastic courage, and 
 excited the astonished pagans to the investigation of a 
 faith for which men and women gloried to die. The pro- 
 fessors now exerted themselves the more strenuously to 
 increase their numbers among all classes of the people ; 
 partly from piety, partly from the very natural wish to gain 
 more general acceptance for their own convictions, and 
 partly to be rendered more secure from future dangers by 
 the strength of their community. 
 
 Hence it was that Christianity spread throughout Eu- 
 rope with wonderful power and rapidity ; that whole 
 places, whole legions, nay, even many of the most dis- 
 tinguished statesmen and generals, embraced the new 
 religion ; and that at last the Emperor Constantine, whf 
 
EUROPE. 
 
 is called the Great, deemed it consistent with his policy 
 to declare publicly in favour of the hitherto persecuted 
 party. Though by far the greater portion of the people 
 steadfastly adhered to the ancient paganism, yet the 
 Christians, by means of their numbers, their influence, 
 their learned men, and their desperate resolution, were of 
 sufficient consequence in all parts of the empire to be 
 the grateful protectors of an oft-shaken and tottering 
 throne. The energetic activity with which the emperor 
 followed up his politic declaration, combined with the 
 ardent zeal of the professors of his new faith, proved de- 
 cisive. The Christian became the predominant religion 
 of the Roman empire in the fourth century. 
 
 The Emperor Julian, disgusted in the recollection of 
 the past glories of Rome with the then state of things, 
 strove once more, but in vain, to re-establish the exploded 
 polytheism of antiquity. He mistook Christianity, which 
 is not surprising, since it was mistaken, though indeed in 
 a different sense, even by many of the Christians of his 
 day ; he mistook his age : he shared, therefore, the fate 
 of those who oppose the spirit of their time. Mean 
 while Persia and Armenia, and the inhabitants of the 
 countries situated between the Black Sea and the Cas- 
 pian, received apostles of the gospel. Ulphilas gave to 
 his Goths in iMcesia the narratives of the Evangelists in 
 their native language ; and Frumentius, the Egyptian, 
 carried the substance of them beyond the great cataracts 
 of the Nile, across the sandy deserts to Habesh. 
 
 Christianity was established in three parts of the world, 
 but the Roman empire in them was destroyed. Vandals 
 and Goths, Allemans, Franks, and Lombards, were ac- 
 quainted with the doctrines of Christ. They founded 
 new empires, but not a new religion. On the other hand, 
 the terror spread in the fifth century by the ferocious 
 Huns strengthened with superstitious fear and hope the 
 inclination of numberless minds to Christianity ; while 
 bold champions of the faith were not weary of proclaim 
 ing the gospel of the crucified Jesus in the mountains of 
 Lebanon and Antilibanus, in the forests of Germany and 
 Jreland, and even on the coast of Malabar. 
 
 The convulsions of the European world from the inva 
 3 
 
JG SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sions of the barbarians were not detrimental to the propa- 
 gation of the Christian faith. Those who were then living 
 had just reason to fear that every tiling would be subvert- 
 ed by northern barbarism. We, of a later period, are ena- 
 bled on the contrary to discover in the result of these pro- 
 digious revolutions the overruling power of an all- wise 
 Providence. There were moments — for what are ages 
 to eternity ? — in which the pure light became fainter, in- 
 asmuch as it was more dispersed. The north, however, 
 was destined to impart new life and youth to the south, 
 and to derive from it a higher degree of civilization. 
 
 As the doctrine of the Cross now began to extend its 
 dominion among the barbarous conquerors in the west, 
 it lost in the seventh century a great part of the east. — 
 Here, in Arabia, arose Muhamed, the founder of a new 
 faith, who enforced with a conquering sword the truth of 
 his revelations. He and his successors left to the van- 
 quished no choice between the adoption of the Koran and 
 slavery or death. Thus was Christianity exterminated in 
 Arabia, Syria, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, and the whole 
 north of Africa, where the religion of the prophet of 
 Mecca now held exclusive sway. Spain itself was sub- 
 jugated by the Arab arms; France, Italy, Helvetia, 
 were menaced, till Charles, surnamed M artel, set bounds 
 in the battle of Tours to their victorious career. The 
 valour or the good fortune of Charles saved France and 
 Germany from the caliphat and the Koran. 
 
 Compared with this event it seemed to be a matter of 
 much less consequence that Columbanus and Kilian, na- 
 tives of Scotland, Gallus, an Irishman, Willibrod, the 
 Anglo-Saxon, Winfried, and others, preached the Gos- 
 pel to some German tribes, and to the people of the Hel- 
 vetian mountains, and overthrew the altars of paganism ; 
 and that the Emperor Charles the First, commonly styled 
 the Great, appeared like a Christian Muhamed to the 
 Saxons and the inhabitants of the plains of Pannonia, 
 and converted them with the edge of the sword. But in 
 the history of the world nothing is to be termed important 
 or unimportant, if it operates mediately or immediately 
 upon the minds of men. The loss of Jerusalem, Alex- 
 andria, Antioch, or Carthage, seemed, indeed, to be 
 
EUROPE. % ' 
 
 but ill compensated by the advantages which Christianity 
 obtained in the wilds of Helvetia, Hesse, Thuringia, and 
 Saxony : but in these very regions subsequently originated 
 the great Reformation of the lbth century, the effects 
 of which extended to the remotest parts of the globe, 
 and regained for Christianity a great part of Asia, Africa, 
 and America. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH TO TIIE PRESENT TIME. * 
 
 With the ninth century, the Cross advanced farther 
 and farther northward. Ansgar made it known to the 
 Jutlanders and Cimbri, the Danes and Swedes, and Rem- 
 bert, of Bremen, to the people of Brandenburg ; while 
 it was received in Bohemias Moravia, and Dalmatia, and 
 introduced, through the zeal of Constantinople, among 
 the heathen on the Lower Danube, as far as the Ukraine, 
 The gospel of Christ was proclaimed even in the frozen 
 regions of Iceland and Greenland. The savage Rugi. 
 in Pomerania, the still more savage Norwegians and 
 Russians, as well as the Sarmatians and Hungarians, re- 
 ceived baptism a hundred years later ; as did the Fins, 
 the Livonians, the Lettes, the Prussians, and the Slavo- 
 nians, in the twelfth or thirteenth century. 
 
 The conversion of all these and other nations origi- 
 nated, it is true, in the pious zeal of Christian princes and 
 priests ; but on the part of the new converts, it was more 
 rarely that better conviction operated so forcibly as the 
 policy of the pagan princes, the obedience of their 
 subjects, or the fear excited in both by the victorious 
 arms of Christian neighbours. It is well known that 
 the Pope, after the crusades in the East had failed to 
 rescue the holy sepulchre from the hands of the Saracens, 
 commanded crusades against the heathen of the North. 
 It is well known with what cruelties and inhuman atrocities 
 
28 SURVEY OF CIIIUSTIANITY/. 
 
 ;hc invader?, especially those from Germany, forced the 
 kingdom of God, as they termed it, upon the brave Li- 
 vonians, Lcttes, Prussians, &,c. They proceeded nearly 
 in the same manner as Charles, styled the Great and 
 (he Holy, had done with the Saxons ; as the Spaniards 
 and Portuguese, two or three centuries later, preached 
 Christianity to the Americans ; or as the successors of 
 Muhamcd continued to propagate the doctrines of the 
 Koran. 
 
 The Christianity proffered at the bloody point of the 
 sword was, indeed, not the doctrine of Jesus ; it was a 
 Christian paganism. The barbarians exchanged the gods 
 of their country for the images of foreigners ; they 
 learned to make the sign of the cross, to kneel, and to 
 recite a prayer. Hence, it was not surprising either that 
 whole nations should be baptized in one year, or to see 
 them in the course of a few years become apostates from 
 Christianity, because old habits are not easily changed 
 for new customs. The Prussians fought manfully till the 
 fourteenth century for their ancient gods. 
 
 The Christianity of those days, if Christianity it may 
 be termed, could not of course have any perceptibly be- 
 neficial influence on the civilization and mental culture of 
 the converted nations. The first step towards this was 
 nevertheless taken. The notion of the unity of God. of 
 the immortality of the soul, of the consequences of hu- 
 man actions after death, became more general. Rude 
 and confused as this notion might still be, as well among 
 the converters as the converted, still it was the first ray of 
 light penetrating their mental darkness. Besides, the 
 circumstance of their having one common religion occa- 
 sioned a brisker intercourse between the half-savage tribes 
 and the more polished nations, and made the former bet- 
 ter acquainted with the inventions, arts, sciences,, and 
 civil institutions of foreigners. That which the church 
 called sin was shunned less from love of the Supreme 
 Being and of virtue, than from fear of purgatory, hell, and 
 the devil. Still the gentle virtues of humanity and the 
 pure conceptions of right and wrong were at this period 
 gradually developed. The civilization of northern fol- 
 owed that of southern Europe with more rapid pace than 
 
EUBOPE. 2^ 
 
 might Iiavc been expected. So early as the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth century the sciences flourished with renewed 
 vigour in numberless conventual schools and academies. 
 
 The ground gained by Christianity during the fifteenth 
 century, at the western extremity of Europe, by the ex- 
 pulsion of the Muhamedan Moors from Spain, was again 
 lost at its south-eastern point, in the subjugation of Greece 
 by Turkish valour. The ancient and far-famed churches 
 of Constantinople, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Philippi. 
 were transformed into mosques, and the Koran ^rove 
 back the Gospel to the frontiers of Hungary. 
 
 Such was the state of things nearly till our own times. 
 The whole of this part of the world, excepting Turkey, 
 professed the doctrine of Jesus ; for the idols of Samogi- 
 tia also were mostly destroyed in the fifteenth century 
 and in Turkey, too, Christianity was by no means wholly 
 exterminated. More than half the European subjects of 
 the Grand Signor remained Christians. 
 
 Out of the one hundred and eighty million inhabitants 
 of Europe, about one hundred and sixty-nine belong to 
 some one of the different Christian churches.* Of these 
 the Catholic prevails in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, 
 the south of Germany, Poland, the Austrian dominions, 
 and some parts of Switzerland ; — the Protestant, in 
 Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, the 
 north of Germany, the Netherlands, and part of the 
 Swiss confederation ; and the ancient Greek church in the 
 Russian empire. Europe now contains no relics of pa- 
 ganism, excepting here and the/e in the extreme north, 
 in the rarely frequented icy regions of the Fins and Lap 
 landers. 
 
 * Humboldt, who estimates the population of Europe at 198 millions, 
 assumes that out of this number 103 millions are Roman Catholics, 52 
 millions Protestants, 38 millions followers of the Greek ritual, and 
 "» millions Muharaedans. 
 
 3* 
 
i u\ i \ or OHKI11 IANIT1 
 
 CHAPTER u 
 
 iSSCRXPTXOfl 01 LAPLAND UNO ri\t\si> -RELICS OJ 
 INCIKNT PAGANISM ATTEMPTS if CONVERT nu 
 
 fi>\ JNQ TRIBES WITHIN THE POLAR CIRCLE TO CHRIS 
 1 AM IV. 
 
 Beyond the northern polar circle, and even on this 
 tide of n, where the continent of Sweden and Norwaj 
 indented by numberless bays into narrow promontories 
 ind peninsulas, runs out towards the ley ocean, is situated 
 the extensive region composed of Finmark, Normark 
 and Lapmark. It occupies art ana of about one hun« 
 dred and fifty thousand square miles, and is consequent!] 
 Bqual in extent to Fran< e or German) A thin popula* 
 tion is scattered over these provinces, where nature rare 
 ly assumes a Bmiling aspect. Upon an average then 
 ■nay be reckoned (our square miles to each individual. 
 
 How could it be otherwise .' It is a barren sod, v ithout 
 owns or traffic. I'lio length and severity of the winter 
 'arely permit any species of grain to thrive ; nor will fruit 
 rees grow there. In the depth of winter, the inhabitants 
 of the northernmost districts have no sun Cor seven buc 
 ressive weeks, and tins long dreary night is interrupted 
 >nly by a twilight o\' an hour and a half or two hours 
 
 about noon. liven m the height of summer the tops of tin- 
 mountains are seen covered with snow, which never melt 8 
 
 u an elevation oi' only three thousand feet above the level 
 
 Of the sea. As far as the eye can reach it encounters nn 
 mense naked plains, the sod of which is here and there 
 
 covered with grass, but in other places consists, tor miles 
 ogether, of moorland, or of dry, sandy, and stony tracti 
 
 Varui£ a scanty herbage, Woods ot' gloomy rtul and 
 
 vlute lirs, alternate with detached clumps of pines, bird. 
 
 rees, and alders, and gradually disappear as you proceci 
 
 hward ot come to more elevated regions. There 
 
IhtLA 
 an<l dWftff \>)t'.!.< ■ 1 I ■:■■ ■ ■■ 
 
 ind Nordfetaen, which 
 
 < >,ll ft Of .■' 
 
 . 
 
 w , / ■ or torn . ■ ■ / ' 
 
 Lapland* 
 The immenne chain of the ragged Kiolian rnoui 
 
 La poiarlt i fron U I 
 
 . , ... 
 
 ^me d 
 f lorf. rrherevei the U I i 
 rithei 
 
 • ■ 
 
 to proi4 < l them from tfv 
 
 There peciee of game am 
 
 rhich farniah them irith H< Thi 
 
 to COI 
 The I in Laplander rnb 
 pitMi ,/ . ■ 
 
 mo b, whii ervee for the i>od of 
 
 man iuUn r 1 be northern b 
 
 • ,//,// - ,//, ;& //• j h h ch 
 flavour, -j r j r J thrivea jr: I 
 of other fi ■ I Tin 
 and 
 
 'l Im Ioj g rrinter pigbta ; ^r'; rend< 
 i 
 
 In g< neral. each fan 
 or thirty ; baa for its summer pere 
 
 of land, on arhk h not 
 eigbboura - and the roving 
 
 ably to tm 
 The .'; peoplei nig 
 ■ 
 
32 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY , 
 
 whereupon to subsist. They pay scarcely any imposts, 
 and are not forced to sacrifice their young men to the 
 military service. They are healthy and robust, seldom 
 above five feet in height, and with their simple mode of 
 living they usually attain a great age. Good-natured, 
 hospitable, and without artifice, they are still somewhat 
 shy and suspicious of a stranger at first sight, but never 
 disagreeable when they have become more familiar with 
 him. Like all mountaineers and roving tribes, they are 
 firmly attached to ancient usages and opinions. 
 
 Attempts were made at an early period by Norway 
 and Sweden to impart to them notions of Christianity, 
 but to very little purpose. With them Jubmel still con- 
 tinued to be the Supreme Being, and Perkel the author 
 of all evil. They reverenced the one from fear, as much 
 as the other from love, just as many ^Christians reve- 
 rence God and the devil. They iiave besides a long 
 catalogue of gods and demi-gods, among whom yet figure 
 Thor and Asjik, who reminds us of the Ases of the Edda. 
 To these, hu-mbly bowed in the dust, they offer sacrifices, 
 namely, the bones and horns of their reindeer, a food 
 which is certainly too hard for men, and may therefore 
 be more suitable for gods. In other respects the good 
 Fin-Laplanders arc not much more superstitious than the 
 common people of our civilized country. Instead of 
 employing teacups or cards, they predict future events 
 by means of their little magic drum ; and instead of 
 quacks and cunning men and women, they apply to their 
 conjurors, whose number, however, is daily diminishing. 
 
 When the Lapmarks were annexed to the Swedish 
 crown, the government endeavoured to make Christians 
 of their inhabitants. They were forced in several places 
 to submit to be married by priests, and to bring their 
 children to be baptized ; they were taught to kneel beforo 
 crucifixes — and this was all their Christianity. Kin^r 
 Gustavus I. subsequently sent priests among them, and 
 even built them a school in the town of Pitea, in Wes! 
 Bothnia. Charles IX. caused churches to be here and 
 there erected in these extensive provinces; Gustavus 
 Adolphus had Lapland school-books printed for them ; 
 *nd Queen Christina furnished them with regular and 
 
LAPLAXD. 33 
 
 permanently resident ministers. All these measures, 
 however, were so imperfectly executed, as to prove inade- 
 quate to the desired effect. Owing to the diversity oi 
 Lapland dialects, very few persons understood the lan- 
 guage of the school-books ; and, on account of the great 
 extent of the country, which, at the conclusion of -the 
 seventeenth century, contained no more than thirty small 
 churches, thousands lived and died without ever seeing 
 one of those edifices. 
 
 It was not till the commencement of the eighteenth 
 century that Frederic I. of Sweden set about the work 
 of conversion more seriously, but. indeed rather harshly, 
 Every Laplander, who could not annually produce a cer- 
 tificate from the minister that he had attended divine ser- 
 vice and received the sacrament, was condemned to labour 
 at the public works. In 1738, the Bible was translated 
 into the Lapland language ; a particular missionary insti- 
 tution was also founded and a fund of three hundred 
 thousand dollars was soon collected for its support. In 
 consequence of these efforts, the whole of Swedish Lap- 
 land possessed in I75Q, twelve'ptincipal and eight subor- 
 dinate churches, and six schools. The Kaitomean Lap- 
 landers alone, dwelling in the Luleamark, precisely under 
 the polar circle, proved refractory, till the zealous Peter 
 Hogstrbm had the courage and perseverance to become 
 their apostle. He who, as we know from his description 
 of the country, considered all the Laplanders as descend- 
 ants of the Hebrews who were carried into the Babylo- 
 nian captivity — a singular notion enough! — accompanied 
 them in their peregrinations and won them by degrees. 
 
 The Norwegian and Fin-Laplanders were provided 
 with Christian instruction about the same time as their 
 Swedish neighbours. At the commencement of the 
 eighteenth century, Frederic IV. King of Denmark, 
 caused the domestic and religious state of the tribes to 
 be investigated, and then founded, in 1714, an institution 
 expressly for the conversion of the heathen But the 
 inflexible perseverance of a private individual accom- 
 plished more than that sovereign. Thomas ton Westen, 
 a minister of the diocess of Dronvheim, whose parish lay 
 contiguous to the chain of the Kiolian mountains, spon 
 
34 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 taneously relinquished his tranquil life, and went forfli 
 among the heathen to proclaim the word of the Redeemer 
 Supported by the government, he erected churches and 
 schools, and founded at D.ontheim a seminary of future 
 messengers of salvation. At his death, in 1 724, Finmark 
 had already three churches, two meeting-houses, and two 
 schools ; and Nordland two churches, twenty meeting- 
 houses, and eighteen schools. There were also .two 
 schoolmasters and missionaries for the heathen in the 
 province of Drontheim. 
 
 Several churches and schools have been since built 
 there. Lapland has at present thirteen principal and ten 
 filial churches, and seven schools. Lutheran hymn-books, 
 catechisms, edifying tracts, explanations of the gospel, 
 and of the Bible alone three translations have been printed 
 in the language of the people. The exertions of the 
 Evangelical Society of Sweden, established at the com- 
 mencement of the year Ut)8, have been particularly me- 
 ritorious ; and not less so those of the Swedish Bible 
 Society of Stockholm, instituted in 1816. with its auxiliary 
 societies at Gotter.burg, Lund, "Wester'as, Wisbye, Skara, 
 Wexio, and Nerike. It is required also that there shall 
 constantly be twelve young men in training, at the expense 
 of the king, for preachers among the Lap-Fins. 
 
 The ancient northern paganism is far from being yet 
 exterminated among these nomadic tribes, any more than 
 among their neighbours, the northernmost Fins, who like 
 then; rove about in savage independence. Like the 
 Swedish Bible Societies, however, those of Russia assi- 
 duously exert themselves for the diffusion of the most an- 
 cient records of Christianity among the Russian Lapland- 
 ers and Fins. In 1815, nearly seven thousand Bibles 
 were distributed among the latter : and thus we may con- 
 fidently anticipate, that there also the human mind will in 
 due time be elevated to its proper dignity. 
 
lai>land. 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Rude as soil and climate may be under the polar circle, 
 still it is not to be doubted that. Christianity, which refines 
 the manners, purifies the feelings, expands the ideas, and 
 opens to youth as it were anew world of conceptions, by 
 means of the increased number of churches and schools, 
 will here also manifest its beneficial effects, and even im- 
 prove the state of the people in a civil point of view. 
 
 The Fin-Laplander is, like all pastoral people, moun- 
 taineers, and nomades, unappalled by the hardships which 
 Nature lays upon him ; but averse to that labour which 
 man voluntarily imposes on himself to better his condi- 
 tion. He engages, therefore, in no sort of occupation to 
 which he is not urged by necessity : more than that he 
 regards as folly. To do nothing belongs to his higher 
 pleasures. With this disposition to indolence, and with 
 the simplicity of his daily employments and social rela- 
 tions, his mind sinks into a sort of lethargy. His usual 
 avocations scarcely need the effort of reflection. His 
 herds of reindeer supply all his wants. Of these useful 
 animals he has such an abundance, that he hardly takes 
 the trouble to count those belonging to him. In times 
 of dearth he helps himself out with fishing and the chase. 
 The example of agricultural industry, set by German, 
 Swedish, and Finland settlers, who were sent hither for 
 the purpose, and to whom various privileges were granted 
 for the promotion of agriculture and the rearing of cattle, 
 proved insufficient to allure the Laplander from his old 
 way of life. Tins example, it is true, was but rarely en- 
 couraging, because these foreigners themselves were 
 mostly poor and ignorant peasants. 
 
 There are three ways by which a people, may be roused 
 into life and activity. Either communicate to it new kinds 
 of wants, the satisfaction of which requires a greater ex- 
 
36 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ertion of its powers — this way is the corruption of man 
 ners which is usually adopted by mercantile nations, to 
 transform harmless, contented, independent tribes into 
 slaves to the spirit of commerce — or, let men be awaken- 
 ed from their long slumber by some great and general ca- 
 lamity, by a war, by the violent overthrow of ancient 
 rights and institutions — who could recommend this horri- 
 ble expedient 1 or let the minds of rising generations be 
 excited to self-cultivation by an improved system of pub- 
 lic instruction. 
 
 A single new idea, penetrating the whole essence of a 
 nation with convincing power, is sufficient to achie\-.! the 
 most extraordinary changes in its moral, domestic, and 
 social condition. And what idea can operate to this end 
 with greater efficacy than that most sublime, most divine 
 idea which Jesus promulgated ? This is proved by the 
 history of nearly two thousand years. Where Christianity 
 fails to manifest this influence, we may be sure that it 
 has lost its primitive purity, and degenerated into the 
 mere observance of church ceremonies, or into an empti 
 profession of dogmatic subtleties and opinions. 
 
PART THE SECOND 
 
 ASIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE FIRST DIFFUSION AND SUBSEQUENT SLT 
 PRESSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA. 
 
 Anterior to the migrations of nations, which spread 
 barbarism over the face of the earth, Christianity had 
 made not less progress in Asia than in Europe. So far as 
 the sway of the Roman emperors extended, the Gospel 
 alone was predominant : paganism was despised, nay. 
 frequently persecuted with ali the extravagance of pious 
 rage. Throughout the whole of Asia Minor, far into the 
 interior of Arabia, the word of -Jesus was promulgated 
 in Armenia also, and even in Persia, numerous congre 
 gations gathered during the fourth century about the light 
 of the better religion. The zeal of individuals for tread 
 ing in the steps of the first apostles of Jesus, and pro 
 claiming the true God in distant lands, was scarcely more 
 conspicuous in Europe than in Asia. It is extremely proba- 
 ble that Bar-Thomas, the Syrian, penetrated so early as the 
 fifth century to Hindoostan and the coast of Malabar, 
 and preached and baptized there. It is more certain stil! 
 that, about a century later, hordes dwelling between the 
 Caucasus and the Black Sea w 7 ere converted by missions 
 from Constantinople. 
 
 The sect founded by Nestorius, patriarch of Con* 
 stantinople, proved the most active of any in the diffu- 
 sion of Christianity in Asia. This prelate, namely, had 
 been engaged in a controversy with his adversary, Cyril 
 4 
 
38 SURVEY OF CIIRISTIANITV. 
 
 lus, concerning the appellation of the "mother of God' 4 
 given to the Virgin Mary, and on the question whe- 
 ther two persons are united in a mysterious manner 
 in Christ ; in which controversy the whole Christian 
 church, or at least its teachers, soon became involved. 
 INeither mild measures, nor force, nor imperial commands 
 could reconcile the disputants. The Nestorians, who 
 adhered to their notion of the union of two persons in 
 Christ, God and man, were the more numerous in Asia. 
 By their zeal for the conversion of the heathen, they in- 
 creased in this part of the world the number of the pro- 
 fessors of their faith, who were abhorred in the west. 
 Nestorian Christians traversed Persia and the steppes of 
 Tartary, and penetrated to China. In the eleventh cen- 
 tury Nestorian Christian metropolitans and bishops were 
 established in Little tiucharia, or Kashgar, in Turkestan, 
 and even in the mountains of Tibet. Scarcely any doubt 
 was entertained that in a few centuries all the nations and 
 tribes of Asia would be imbued with and sanctified by the 
 spirit of Jesus. 
 
 These prospects were suddenly changed by the appear- 
 ance of Mfuhamed, the prophet of Mecca. Arabia 
 yielded to his miracles, or to his agreeable doctrines, and 
 to the success of his arms. Christianity was exterminated 
 there, and not long afterwards in the adjacent countries. 
 These triumphs of the enthusiastic professors of the Ko- 
 ran seemed at. once to demonstrate the favour of heaven 
 and the truth of a religion which, flattering the feelings of 
 the ardent, barbarous Orientals, combined a grand sys- 
 tem of morality with simplicity of religious doctrines, and 
 confidence in the irrevocable decrees of the Supreme 
 Being with military glory and the pleasures of life. This 
 took place while the Christianity of those countries and 
 times presented little else than church ceremonies, scho- 
 lastic subtleties, and sophistical opinions of the commen- 
 tators on the Scriptures. The spirit of the Saviour was 
 forgotten in the dispute concerning the nature of his per- 
 son. The irreconcileable animosity of the parties facili- 
 tated the progress of the Saracens, and each of them ra- 
 ther exulted in the fall of fellow-christian antagonists, than 
 trembled at the triumphs of the infidel Arabs. The Nesn 
 
ASIA. 39 
 
 torians, indeed, were suspected, not without reason, of 
 traitorous co-operation, since the caliphs Ahubekr, Omar, 
 and Othman, subdued, with such wonderful rapidity, 
 Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, together with Jerusalem, all 
 Asia Minor, and even Persia, and compelled them to 
 embrace the religion of their Prophet. But the downfal 
 of the Greek empire and of Christianity was promoted in 
 a much greater degree by the imbecility of the emperors 
 at Constantinople, than by the hatred of the Nestorians. 
 The prodigious efforts of Europe in the Crusades could 
 not save either. 
 
 The Nestorian Church, nevertheless, flourished long 
 afterwards in the interior of Asia. It was known in the 
 elevated plains of Tartary ; it was known in Hindoostan. 
 and at the Court of the Mogul himself: and China con- 
 tained, down to the thirteenth century, many Christian 
 congregations. Such was the consequence which Nes- 
 tor's disciples possessed, or were thought to possess, that 
 three popes sent ambassadors to induce them to unite 
 with the western church. Joannes a Monte Corvino like- 
 wise prepared for them a Tartar translation of the Psalms 
 and books of the New Testament. It was certainly a 
 subject of just regret, that tbo Nestorian Christians had 
 not, during the period of their prosperity, succeeded in 
 converting to Christianity, in Turkestan and in t. e steppes 
 of Khorasan and Bokhaia, a nation which soon filled all 
 Asia with terror by its victories. 
 
 This nation was that of the Turks. These people, 
 who soon became the destroyers of the Arabian caliphat, 
 reduced Persia and Asia Minor under their authority, and 
 menaced Europe, had embraced the doctrine of Muhamed, 
 and, with greater intolerance than the Arabs themselves, 
 made the Christians of all countries the objects of their 
 mortal hatred. Through them the extent and influence 
 of the Nestorians were greatly diminished, especially in 
 .western Asia. In the territories of the Mongols they 
 were more firmly established : nay, when these, under 
 the conduct of their mighty Jenghis Khan and his suc- 
 cessors, extended in the thirteenth century their sway 
 from the frontiers of China to Syria, and still farther, the 
 victories of the ferocious barbarians seemed to be at the 
 
40 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 same time victories for Christianity. It is even assertcu 
 that Mangoo, the grandson of Jenghis Khan, was a Chris- 
 tian — he who reduced Bagdad, and, crossing the Eu- 
 phrates, shook Asia Minor and Syria. 
 
 But all these were soon crushed by a still more mighty 
 hand. In the interior of Tartary, in Jagatai, which bor- 
 ders on Persia, China, and India, arose one of the Emirs. 
 Timurlenk, and became a second Jenghis Khan. In the 
 career of his successes he destroyed a whole series of 
 ancient and modern thrones, and, as a zealous follower 
 of his Arabian prophet, overthrow all the temples and 
 altars of the Christians. So terribly did he complete his 
 work, that in the fifteenth century scarcely any vestiges 
 of iNestorian Christians remained in Central and Upper 
 Asia. Besides the ancient paganism of the deserts, the 
 religions of Muhamed, Lama, and Brahma, were alone 
 predominant. < hina only still displayed insignificant and 
 despised relics of the ancient prosperity of the Nestorians. 
 The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, founded at the 
 conclusion of the eleventh century by the enthusiastic 
 valour of the European Crusaders, had long ceased to 
 exist. The professors of the Gospel lived dispersed and 
 contemned in the countries of Armenia, Syria, and Asia 
 Minor, under the Turkish dominion, which soon extend- 
 ed itself over Constantinople and Greece, and even to 
 the Lower Danube towards the interior of Europe. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 -TATE OF THE CHRISTIAN SECTS IN TURKEY IN ASIA — 
 CATHOLICS, GREEKS, MARONITES, &C. THEIR BAR- 
 BARISM. 
 
 A tract of more than three hundred and sixty thousand 
 square miles in Western Asia is still subject to the Grand 
 Signor of Constantinople. Out of the eleven or twelve 
 millions of souls inhabiting these countries under Turkish 
 
TUKKEY IN ASIA. 41 
 
 supremacy, there are scarcely two millions of Christians. 
 They are treated by the Turks with profound contempt, 
 but experience more liberal toleration than the Protesants 
 in Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic countries, or than 
 the Catholics in many of the Protestant stares in Europe. 
 But, as in Europe so in Asia, the different Christian commu- 
 nions render themselves despicable by their mutual hatred, 
 and ridiculous by their zeal for the conversion of each 
 other. It is no uncommon thing, as we are informed by 
 recent travellers, that the Turkish sentinels at the holy se- 
 pulchre in Jerusalem are obliged to have recourse to force 
 to keep order among the < hristian devotees, when the 
 latter, full of jealous zeal, come to blows with one another, 
 and the Nestorian Christian taunts the Catholic, or the 
 Catholic the Greek. 
 
 Under the protection of the Grand Signor the Catho- 
 lics have, in Asia Minor, arid especially in the Holy Land, 
 several scattered congregations and convents, which, as 
 well as the Catholics of European and African Turkey, 
 are under the ecclesiastical superintendence of te bishops 
 and two archbishops. Most of the Catholic attempts 
 at conversion have hitherto been directed from Mesopota- 
 mia, Bagdad, and Bassora, to Syria and ChaJdaea. The 
 Catholic worship is performed with the same freedom in 
 the heart of the mountains of Syria as in Rome itself: 
 but in the former, the manners of its professors are more 
 simple and more pure. The Syrian monks are neither 
 very rigid nor great divines ; but they give simple rules 
 and strictly follow them. The secular clergy are not dis- 
 tinguished either for rank or theological knowledge, but 
 they are pious and respected. They know no other guide 
 but the Gospel. They live in poverty and support their 
 families by the labour of their hands. How different this 
 state of things from that at Rome ! The number of 
 these Christians is as little known as that of the Nesto- 
 rians and Jacobites, who live round about as far as Arabia 
 and Persia, and who for a thousand years past have been 
 at variance concerning the natures and wills in Christ, and 
 also about certain ceremonies of divine worship. The 
 patriarch of the Nestorian Christians, whose dignity is 
 hereditary, resides at Coch-Hames, in the mountains of 
 4* 
 
i2 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 northern Kurdistan More like the leader of a military 
 clan than the prelate of a religious community, he exercises 
 the power of life and death over his flock. 
 
 The patriarch of the Syrian Jacobites, who has under 
 iiim twenty-one bishoprics, lives in the convent of Der- 
 Zaaferan, about fifteen miles from the city of Mardin in 
 Mesopotamia. These Jacobites, like their priests, are 
 rude and ignorant. The bishop of Hkesn, situate on the 
 Tigris between Mardin and Jezira, is one of the most 
 noted robbers of his horde. He even takes his gun with 
 him to the altar while he performs divine service. 
 
 The Maronites are more numerous, especially in the 
 mountains of Kesroan, a branch of the Lebanon. Their 
 many parishes — they amount to about two hundred — 
 extend through Syria beyond Aleppo and Damascus. At 
 Damascus itself, indeed, the Christians appear more like 
 slaves than free men, owing no less to their own pusilla- 
 nimity than to the arrogance of the Turks. They may be 
 recognised in the streets, as a modern traveller assures us, 
 by their abject cringing manner. Their priests, espe 
 cially in the mountains, are poor ; they are allowed to 
 marry, but must take virgins only to wife. Few r of them 
 remain single, to the great satisfaction of their parish- 
 ioners. Divine service is held in the Syrian language ; but 
 the gospels and prayers are read in Arabic. The Ma- 
 ronites, in the low country and in the mountains, are of 
 more noble and independent principles than those in the 
 towns, upright in their conduct, innocent, and often dread- 
 fully severe in their manners. The women there are not 
 so closely veiled as in the cities ; but an unmarried female 
 who proves pregnant atones for her indiscretion with her 
 life, which is taken by the hand of her own parents ; and 
 a mother deems hcrs< f dishonoured when her son-in-law 
 fails to produce evide.ee of her daughter's chastity the 
 day after their nuptials Thus do the Maronites render 
 themselves respected, particularly by the Druses. Tribu- 
 tary to the Emirs of the latter, they are sometimes their 
 principal and most trusty servants. The Maronite Chris- 
 tians, too, are continually increasing under the Druses. It 
 is even asserted that Ubschir, Emir of the Druses, (in the 
 vear 1811) was a Christian, at least in his heart. The 
 
TURKEY IN ASIA. 43 
 
 Catholics regard the Maronitcs as brethren, because they 
 consider the pope as their head, and the latter confirms 
 the patriarch, whom they themselves elect. In the year 
 18 J 8, Giarve, the archbishop (since elected patriarch) oi 
 Jerusalem, appeared at the feet of his Holiness at Rome, 
 and obtained from the King of France Syrian types and 
 printing-presses for his convent on Lebanon Thus, too, 
 many of the dispersed relics of the IXestorian church arc 
 for the like reason considered as good Catholics. 
 
 The Armenian and still more the Greek Christians arc 
 dispersed in the greatest numbers through the Turkish 
 empire in Asia. The head of the ancient Armenian 
 church, however, resides not in the Turkish, but in the 
 Persian dominions, at the convent of Idschmiassin, or 
 ■* The Descent of the Incarnate, '" in Erivan. There the 
 patriarch bears the appellation of Hugas Kathaltos, that 
 is, Emperor of thfi Elect, and in hoi) supremacy of power 
 dispenses his commands to the archbishops of the Arme- 
 nian church at Ajas, in Caramania, at Agtomar, on the 
 salt lake of Wan, in Turcomania, and at Constantinople, 
 as well as to the many sufi'ragan bishops and abbots in 
 Syria and *he rot ot Asia Minor. The head of the Ca- 
 tholic-Armenian religion resides at Constantinople, of the 
 Catholic-Syrian on Mount Lebanon, and of the Catholic- 
 Chaldaeanat Diarbekir. The church of the latter, how 
 ever, is in a most deplorable decline. 
 
 The head of the Greek church, on the other hand, or 
 at least of that branch of it which is under the Turkish 
 dominion, resides at Constantinople, as archbishop of 
 Stambul, and cecuinenic patriarch over the patriarchs of 
 Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, more than twenty 
 metropolitans and as many archbishops, one hundred and 
 twenty despots, or bishops, and innumerable archiman- 
 drites, igumens, popes, deacons. &c. 
 
 The Turkish empire is not wholly restitute of Pro 
 testant congregations, but their number is very small. Not 
 only at Constantinople, but even in the heart of Syria, at 
 Aleppo, are to be found churches and schools of Cal^ 
 vinists and Lutherans. 
 
 Attempts of the Christians at conversion, if they pre- 
 sume to direct them against professors of the Koran, arc 
 attended with great danger ; hence they arc but faint 
 
H SURVEY OP CHRISTIATsTTl 
 
 nay, scarcely perceptible. The G ospel indeed is preacheti 
 to the Jews, but wi.hout much fruit. The mission lor 
 the conversion of th<- Muhamedans, which Professor Cal- 
 lenberg, of Halle, assisted to found in the first half of the 
 last century, extended its operations with extreme caution 
 towards Asia Minor. All that was done consisted in the 
 distribution of some thousand copies of a translation of 
 the New Testament, or the shorter Catechism of Luther, 
 in Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo ; and to little more 
 than this are the efforts of the British and ivussian Bible 
 Societies at present limited. 
 
 The press of the Missionary Society at Malta is very 
 actively engaged, it is true, in printing portions of the 
 Scriptures and tracts in Creek, Arabic, and Italian — 
 among the rest a monthly publication, " r J he Friend of 
 Blan, 1 ' begun in January, 1826- —which are circulated in 
 the Ionian Islands and Greece, at Constantinople and 
 Smyrna, and in Syria and Egypt. 
 
 Perhaps no greater service could be rendered to the 
 Christian churches in Asiatic Turkey than to begin by 
 converting these themselves to Christianity : for by far 
 the greater part of the Christians there of all communions 
 live in a state of ignorance and moral depravity. Priests 
 as well as laity are mostly sunk in the mire of a supersti- 
 tion which they term religion. The very Turks fre- 
 quently appear more noble, more rational, more religious, 
 than they. The picture of the Greeks given by Meyer 
 of Arbon,* one of the latest, most upright, and most in- 
 telligent, of travellers, serve to convince us that the Turks 
 cannot help feeling more and more abhorrence for Chris- 
 tianity, when they have daily before their eyes the atro- 
 cious depravity of those who call themselves Christians. 
 
 The monks in Asiatic Turkey live chiefly by the stupid 
 credulity of the laity, and those at Jerusalem in particular 
 by the devotion of eastern and western pilgrims. The 
 convent of the Holy Sepulchre alone sells relics, rosaries, 
 agnus-deis, crucifixes, and amulets, of all sorts, to the 
 amount of fifty thousand piastres per annum. Several 
 hundred chests of such articles are annually sent off to 
 
 * His travels are published in the German language, with the title of 
 Schicksale cine* Schweizers toahrend seiner Reise nach Jerusalem, 
 &c— -St. Gall, 1815, 3 vols, 
 
TURKEY IN ASIA. 4£> 
 
 *reat distances around ; and even Muhamedan families 
 subsist by the manufacture of them for convents. The 
 scenes exhibited on Palm-Sunday at Jerusalem, when 
 men, women, and children, all plunge publicly stark-naked 
 into the Jordan ; or those on Easter Eve, when Greeks, 
 Armenians, and Catholics, run, leap, and crawl, like ma- 
 niacs, round the holy sepulchre, with shouts of Hvja ! or 
 rush furiously to the grave for the purpose of there lighting 
 their tapers at the fire which has descended from heaven, 
 cannot but excite in the Turks the utmost contempt, for 
 Christianity. 
 
 fn Syria and in the greater part of Asia Minor, the pro- 
 fessors of the religion of Jesus, and especially the Greeks 
 and Armenians, are deemed the most depraved and de- 
 ceitful of men. They have themselves in general a mwh 
 higher opinion of Muhamedans than of one another, and 
 particularly of those who perform frequent pilgrimages 
 to Jerusalem and other places of devotion. On the latter 
 point they coincide with the followers of Muhamed. who. 
 though they consider a visit to Mecca as meritorious, 
 nevertheless have this saying : "• Beware of thy neighbour 
 if he has been at Mecca ; and if he ha* been twice there, 
 sell thy house and move out of his way." 
 
 The distribution of Turki s h, Armenian, Syriac, and 
 Arabic, translations of the Bible may possibly contribute 
 to the regeneration of Christianity in those countries. Cy- 
 rillus.thececumenic patriarch and archbishop of Constan- 
 tinople, in 1814, granted at least his patriarchal permission 
 for the circulation of the Scriptures among the Greeks, 
 
 The cause of Christianity in Turkey seems, however, 
 to have suffered by the insurrection of the Greeks against 
 their Muhamedan masters, and the murder, in 1821, of 
 the patriarch Gregory and other Greek ecclesiastics, in 
 Constantinople and various parts of the domin ons of the 
 Grand Signor. The zeal of this patriarch in the dissemi- 
 nation of scriptural knowledge, encouraged by the agents 
 of the British Bible Society, was a permanent and grow- 
 ing principle, and it was particularly manifested in his 
 patronage of the undertaking of Hiiarion, the archiman- 
 drite of his church, to give to his countrymen an accept- 
 able version of the Scriptures, and of the other transla 
 
10 SURVEY OF ClIlllSTIANITi. 
 
 tions of the Bible in progress at Constantinople at the 
 time of his death. The hopes of Christians kindled by 
 the prospects held forth by the co-operation of this prelate, 
 are, indeed, damped by these and other untoward circum- 
 stances ; but we cannot doubt that the sacred work of 
 diffusing" the liifht of the Gospel in this semi-barbarian 
 portion of Europe, though delayed, will be eventually 
 accomplished. 
 
 The state of the Greek church itself presents one of 
 the greatest obstacles to this desirable consummation ; 
 for there are even bishops and archbishops who have 
 hitherto known nothing of* the sacred books of Christen- 
 dom, or perhaps no more than the contents of the four 
 Gospels Still more ignorant were the other Greeks and 
 Armenians respecting the written sources of their faith. 
 it is to be lamented that these people have very few good 
 schools ; and though they may have learned to read, very 
 seldom feel any inclination for reading. This they leave 
 to their clergy, and the latter care much more for the 
 gifts and offerings which are made to them, than about 
 the piety of the flocks committed to their charge. It 
 is well known that the patriarch of Constantinople pur- 
 chases of the sultan, at the price of one bundled thou- 
 sand piastres, his Christian dignity, which confers on him 
 the rank of a pacha of tvvo tails, ami that he is obliged to 
 devise means of bringing that sum back again into the 
 sacred exchequer. 
 
 The influence possessed by the Roman Catholics seems 
 to be another powerful obstacle to the dissemination of 
 the truths of Christianity in the Turkish dominions. To 
 that influence is ascribed the hostility lately manifested by 
 the government to the efforts of Protestant missionaries 
 and to the circulation of the Scriptures, which was ex- 
 pressly prohibited by a firman of the Grand Signor's 
 issued in 1824, on the ground of their being false books, 
 and which commands that all such books as have been 
 lately introduced from Europe shall be forcibly taken from 
 their owners and burnt. The Romish vicar-apostolical 
 in the patriarchate of Constantinople, seconding this 
 measure, in a circular dated May, 1826, and addressed 
 to the Christians of his church, threatens with excommu- 
 
TURKEY IN ASIA. 41 
 
 mcation all who arc in possession of biblical works pro- 
 hibited by the pope, and shall not within eight days sur- 
 render them " to be consigned to the flames merited by 
 such infected and pestilential books, which deprave and 
 corrupt the world.'* This anathema was especially called 
 forth by the circulation of various publications in Greek 
 and Italian, issued from the Church Mission press at 
 Malta, and sent to Constantinople. The firman of the 
 sultan has been made the plea for breaking up several 
 flourishing Christian schools, burning hundreds of copies 
 of the Bible, and imprisoning and otherwise punishing 
 those with whom this book has been found. 
 
 A communication signed by missionaries of different 
 societies, labouring amidst the dangers arising from Turk- 
 ish oppression, excited by Romish bribery and intrigue, 
 contains these observations, which deserve the serious at- 
 tention of the British government : " The treaty between 
 Great Britain and the Porte professes to place England 
 on the footing of the most favoured nation. Where is this 
 impartiality, so solemnly pledged ? Other nations are al- 
 lowed to send hither hundreds of missionaries and whole edi- 
 tions of really false books, to erect here convent after con- 
 vent, and to receive native Christians under their religious 
 instruction. For hundreds of years have other nations 
 gone on with this work, with little or no complaints from 
 government ; but the moment such liberty is taken by 
 the English nation, and in the most inoffensive and un- 
 objectionable form — that of distributing among Chris- 
 tians their own sacred books — immediately a public order 
 is issued to prevent this work. We see not why this is 
 not really and properly a violation of treaty ; as truly so 
 as it would be to burn all the Romish books, to shut up 
 al! the convents of the Terra Santa establishment, or to 
 expel all the Latin missionaries from the country. 
 
 " If proper representations are made on this subject 
 in the right quarter, we have strong hopes that the results 
 would be a formal repeal of the obnoxious firman, express 
 permission to English missionaries to reside in the coun- 
 try, in their own proper character, leave to distribute 
 Bibles and to erect churches like other nations, and a full 
 security against violence to the persons and property of 
 
48 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 those who might choose to assemble and unite with them 
 in worship/' 
 
 The public events which have recently taken place in 
 these parts, and more especially the battle of Navarin, 
 however they may indispose the Turks to favour English- 
 men, can scarcely fail to add weight to any proper inter- 
 ference in behalf of our countrymen, or of any Christians 
 in connexion with them. Meanwhile the press is pour- 
 ing forth the Scriptures and Christian books, which make 
 their way in spite of opposition ; and Malta, by the pro- 
 ductions of her able and devoted labourers, is fulfilling a 
 far higher -and nobler destiny than merely as a great out- 
 work of her country. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PAGANISM OP SIBERIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATES- 
 DEFECTIVE INSTITUTIONS FOR CONVERSION CONVENT- 
 UAL SCHOOLS MISSIONS. 
 
 The vast, north of Asia, subject to the Russian sceptic, 
 contains a superficial area of more than four millions of 
 square miles, a space so extensive that it would admit 
 within its limits the whole of Europe were it half as large 
 again as it is. This immense tract, inhabited by many 
 heathen nations, which are living in a state of primitive 
 barbarism, and which scarcely number nine millions of 
 souls, is for the most part a dreary desert ; full of steppes, 
 extending farther than the eye can reach, and the salt soil 
 of which is not embellished by a single tree ; or moors 
 and endless forests, into the heart of which mortal has 
 scarcely ever penetrated- The wilderness becomes stili 
 more dead and dreary at every step towards the polar 
 circle, where the soil is more and more unsusceptible of 
 cultivation, till at length man and beast succumb beneath 
 the inclement sky in the unequal conflict with Nature. 
 It is not an uncommon circumstance for snow to fall in 
 
SfBERIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATES. 49 
 
 the summer months in Siberia ; and in the \vinters*)f 
 Nertschinsk and Tobolsk, quicksilver is congealed into 
 so hard a mass that it may be hammered out into leaves. 
 
 The greater part of the tribes, rude and independent, 
 lead a roving life, under moveable tents and jurts, in caves 
 and subterraneous houses, engaged in rapine, the breed- 
 ing of cattle, hunting, and fishing. Many, overwhelmed 
 by cares for the preservation of life, without any notiort 
 of a better state, brood in sullen stupidity over the means 
 of prolonging their wretched existence ; following, like 
 the brute beast, only the first instincts of Nature. Others 
 have indeed elevated themselves to religious conceptions, 
 or have inherited them from their ancestors ; but these 
 conceptions are crude and scanty, like their mode of 
 life — a paganism which may be termed the abortion of 
 the most uncultivated understanding. Others again 
 bear, it is true, the signs of Christianity and baptismal 
 names, but without having the most obscure notion of the 
 religion of Christians. They are still heathen, attached 
 to the gods of their forefathers, and such they will long 
 remain. In the more recent enumerations, there were 
 found to be about a million of fire and fetish worship- 
 pers, besides about three hundred thousand subjects of 
 the Lama religion, in addition to the professors of the 
 Koran, about three millions of whom inhabit the Asiatic 
 dominions of Russia. 
 
 In the course of the eighteenth century, various attempts 
 were made to propagate Christianity through the Tartaries 
 and the deserts of Siberia. Very few of them were pro- 
 ductive of benefit ; but, on the other hand, very few were 
 conducted with prudence and in a purely Christian spirit. 
 Philophei, Greek archbishop of Tobolsk, at the commence- 
 ment of the eighteenth century, sent several of his clergy 
 to the Mongol tribes and their kutuchtes, or Lama high^ 
 priests, but without success. Full of pious zeal, he at 
 length went himself, in the year 1712, to the Ostiaks, who 
 live by hunting, fowling, and fishing, in the wilds along the 
 Obi. He took with him priests and Russian soldiers. 
 He entered the juts of the timid people ; attacked then; 
 Shamans, or sorcerers ; burned their household-gods, 
 rudelv carved wooden dolls, clothed in rags ; overthrew 
 
 5 
 
50 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the sacred trees ; forbade polygamy and the eating of 
 horseflesh ; enjoined the observance of the Greek fasts 
 and the wearing of the cross ; and was at the same time 
 assiduous in baptizing. He frequently ordered his mili- 
 tary attendants to drive large bodies of the refractory into 
 the water, where they then received baptism, whether 
 they would or not. 
 
 In other parts, attempts at conversion were conducted 
 in nearly the same manner, among the indolent and efiemi- 
 nate Buraits, who inhabit the country from the Jenesei 
 to the frontiers of China, dwell in felt huts, and worship 
 Oktorgon Burchan, the good spirit, and Okodol, the evil 
 one, besides heavenly bodies and household deities ; — 
 among the Wogules along the northern Ural mountains, 
 who are addicted to the chase, and who invoke particular 
 deities preparatory to particular occupations ; among, the 
 Tungusians, Wotyaiks, &,c. It seemed, therefore, not at 
 all incredible, when Theodore, metropolitan of Tobolsk, 
 announced with exultation, in the year 1721, the baptism 
 of more than forty thousand Tartars, and their conversion 
 completed in a very short time : or when the College 
 De Propaganda Fide acquainted the sacred synod of Pe- 
 tersburg with the conversion of 295,679'souls among the 
 Wotyaiks,Tchuwashes,Tcheremisses,and Mord wines, in a 
 series of eight years, from 1740 to 174 7. Rapid progress 
 w T as also made in baptizing the Calmucks, through the zeal 
 of Nicodemus Lenkeiawitz, archimandrite of Astracan, 
 especially since IVIursa Tenishkow, in 1732, and even 
 Dshan,the female Khan of the Calmucks, in 1744, thought 
 fit to accept the bath of regeneration, for which their 
 god-mother, the Empress Elizabeth, made them valuable 
 presents, and conferred on them the princely rank. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add a single remark on the 
 spirit of those Russian apostles and their proselytes, and 
 on the Christianity of both. The travels of a Gmelin, 
 a Pallas, and more recent writers, furnish no very pleas- 
 ing accounts of the Christianity of the Fins, Tartars, 
 and Mongols. From them we learn that it was mostly 
 hordes, living in abject poverty and want, which submit- 
 ted to baptism in the hope of gain ; and that they were 
 ao better Christians for their conversion, as it was called. 
 
SIBERIA AKD THE RUSSIAN STATES. 51 
 
 Xlian they had been before. The utmost they did, in 
 order to ingratiate themselves with the Russians, was to 
 adopt a few of the usages of the Greek church, and 
 punctually celebrate its festivals, because they were sup- 
 plied on such occasions with beer or brandy, wherewith 
 to intoxicate themselves. The more wealthy nations, on 
 the contrary, the Tungusians, who possess numerous 
 herds, the Beltires, &c, adhered stedfastly to the gods 
 of their country and the usages of their ancestors. The 
 migrations of many of the Cal mucks to the Chinese ter- 
 ritory are even said to have been a consequence of the 
 indignation of these Mongols against the Kussian clergy 
 and their armed deacons, since the Lama Priests account- 
 ed to the people in the fbHowing manner for the zeal ma- 
 nifested by the Russians for their conversion : — " The 
 Russian God wants .money, the Russian governor bread, 
 the Russian czar recruits : this is the reason why you are 
 to become Christians and to till the ground like slaves." 
 
 Under the (impress Catherine II. milder and more pru- 
 dent measures were adopted. A particularly judicious 
 step was the foundation of seminaries for the education of 
 boys belonging to the Tchuwashes, Tcheremisses, Mord- 
 wines, Calmucks, and other Tartar and Mongol tribes, 
 who were afterwards to be employed as teachers and 
 priests among their roving countrymen.' Similar institu- 
 tions were established at Irkutzk, Kusan, and other places; 
 and the Jesuits also sent forth missionaries into the desert 
 steppes. 
 
 Of the harvest produced by the sacred seed which they 
 sowed verv little is known. We may, nevertheless, fairly 
 presume that all their pains were not thrown away ; they 
 were at least a preparation to something better. How, 
 indeed, can we hope to perceive important results from 
 the zeal of individuals who are lost like minute points in 
 the immensity of spice, among such a multitude of differ- 
 ent tribes — tribes which often live completely dispersed, 
 without permanent abodes, and which are still destitute of 
 the first preliminary, moral cultivation ! The religious 
 notions of nations are always in the same ratio with their 
 other notions Hence we still find in the interior of Asia 
 descendants of ancient Christians — as the Awchases, in 
 
b2 SURVEY OF CnHISTlANITY. 
 
 Russian Georgia, or among the Lesgi, in whose valleys 
 and mountains, along the river Koisu, may still he disco- 
 vered unequivocal relics of the Avarea and Huns — who 
 Iujow nothing of Christian rites beyond the observance of 
 Sunday and the long fasts of the Greek church. Thus, 
 too, we meet with Muhamedan tribes, who know scarcely 
 any thing of the Koran of their Prophet, excepting cir- 
 cumcision and abstinence froi" swine's flesh and strong 
 liquors. Jewish Tartars are also to be seen — for instance, 
 in the Khanat of Kuha — who have retained but little of the 
 law of Moses. They are downright heathen, like the 
 rest — like the Mongols, in the sandy plains of Chiigontui, 
 in which stands their most celebrated datsan, or temple, 
 according to whom the sialactitic caves in the lofty moun- 
 tains of Uda are the abodes of the spirits, both good and 
 evil. 
 
 Ages must elapse beiore all these tribes of northern 
 and central Asia, many of whom are yet but little known, 
 attain a higher degree of general civilization. The very 
 nature of their climate, and the mode of life resulting 
 from it, operate as obstructions. The principal means 
 for accomplishing this desirable end must be furnished by 
 Russia in Europe ; but even that country is still lar be- 
 hind the other nations of our quarter of the globe. 
 
 Hence the Emperor Alexander deserved the especial 
 gratitude of all the friends of mankind by ii's efforts for 
 the improvement of the system of education. His admi- 
 rable ukase relative to the ecclesiastical or conventual 
 schools is well known ; stiil there are in the whole empire 
 scarcely sixty of these institutions, which alone require 
 an expenditure of three hundred and sixty thousand rubles 
 for their support. In the year 1814, there were twenty 
 thousand scholars and two hundred and ninety-seven teach- 
 ers in the higher class of these schools, thirty-six in num- 
 ber, which are called seminaries, and differ from the 
 eighteen lower, which limit their instruction to the Chris- 
 tian religion, writing, and arithmetic, in the ecclesias- 
 tical academies at Kioff, Moscow, AlexandrorT, and Ka- 
 san, there were at the same time four thousand pupisl 
 ind fifty teachers. 
 
 In addition to these efforts, the Russian Bible Socio- 
 
SIBERIA AND TUB RUSSIAN STATES. 53 
 
 ties deserve great credit for the circulation of the sacred 
 scriptures in the Russian, Armenian, Cahnuck, Grusiaa, 
 Persian, and other languages ; and the missions establish- 
 ed in 179b' by the Edinburgh Missionary Society are not 
 less meritorious. It is remarkaole that at the present day, 
 as some centuries since, in the middle ages, Britain has 
 done most to animate the zeal for the conversion of the 
 heathen, as well as furnished the greatest number of mis* 
 sionaries for the good work ; for it has not tewer than 
 twelve different extensive societies, actively engaged in 
 the diffusion of Christianity. 
 
 So far back as the year 1803, two British ministers, 
 Henry Brunton and Alexander i'aterson, accompanied 
 by a young African, named Harrison, were despatched 
 by the Scottish Missionary Society to Russia, to preach 
 the Gospel of Jesus in Tartary. They received cordial 
 encouragement from the government, proceeded to As- 
 tracan, and thence to Karass, a Tartar village, at the 
 foot of the Caucasian mountains, a few days' journey 
 from the Persian, Bokharian, and Turkish frontiers, and 
 nearly equidistant from the Black and Caspian Seas. — 
 There they settled in the vicinity of the predatory hordes ; 
 but Brunton alone remained at that spot, where he was, 
 however, assisted in this work by five more of his coun- 
 trymen, mostly artisans. Here they translated the new 
 Testament into Tartar and printed it thersselves ; and 
 purchased captive children and instructed them in the 
 Tartar and English languages. They were several times 
 obliged to leave Karass and seek refuge in the fortified 
 town of Georgiewsk, about thirty miles distant, or in the 
 Russian castle of Constantinogorski. Sometimes it was 
 the plague which drove them away, at others hostile incur- 
 sions of the Tartars, against which neither the ramparts 
 and palisades of their settlement, nor the protection of 
 Russian Cossacks, were a sufficient defence. Undaunted 
 by these annoyances they nevertheless returned invariably 
 to their former residence, where d welt besides them about 
 thirty German families and some baptized Tcherkesset 
 -and Tartars. A few days after the battle of Leipzig, the 
 Emperor Alexander secured to them all more effectual 
 protection for the future, by a Ukase addressed to fht 
 .&* 
 
5£ SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 commander-in-chief in Georgia. Agreeably to bis wishes 
 also, two of the missionaries, John Mitchell and Charles 
 Frazer, repaired to Orenburg, to found a new settlement 
 on the Ural, for the conversion ot the nomadic Tartars 
 and Muhamedans. It appears, however, from the last 
 reports of the Scottish Missionary Society, that its direct* 
 ors have relinquished the mission in Astracan, and are in 
 negotiation for the transfer of the colony ot Karass to the 
 Basle Evangelical Society, which is anxious to have such 
 an establishment for the basis of its missionary operations 
 in the Russian empire. 
 
 All these and other efforts for the civilization and pro- 
 pagation of Christianity in Asiatic Russia proceed but 
 slowly, and in continual warfare witn the impediments 
 thrown in their way by the nature of the climate and the 
 people. Even the old establishments of the United 
 Brethren on the Sarpa, where, in the year 1765, they 
 founded Sarepta, have produced much less fruit than was 
 at first expected. The Europeans who have been removed 
 thither, vanquished by the climate, at length become 
 more like Asiatics in habits and manners than the Asiatics 
 like Europeans. The destruction of Sarepta, by fire, 
 in 1812, proved a great check to the then commencing 
 prosperity of the colony. 
 
 The missionaries had already begun to despair of being 
 able ever to gain over the Calmuck hordes to the Gospel. 
 The congregation of the Brethren at Astracan, where 
 they had also instituted a school expressly for Calmuck 
 children, did not however relinquish the pious design; 
 and, in the spring of 1815, two missionaries, Gottfried 
 Schill and Christian ilubner, again proceeded from Sarepta 
 to the steppes of the Calmucks. 
 
 Astracan, a considerable town, with seventy thousand 
 inhabitants, situated on an island at the mouths of the 
 Wolga, was selected by the Moravian brethren on account 
 of its peculiar position for the centre of their missions ; 
 because it affords greater facilities than any other place 
 lor operations in Siberia, Tartary, Persia, and Turkey, 
 from which countries travellers of all classes are continue 
 ally arriving at Astracan. Little, however, has been 
 hitherto achieved. In 1815 the Edinburgh Missionary £fo 
 
SIBEHIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATED- 65 
 
 ciety sent two of their most zealous colleagues to renew 
 the work of conversion. The rudeness of the climate, 
 country, and inhabitants, and their dispersed state and 
 wandering life have proved permanent obstructions to all 
 these philanthropic undertakings. 
 
 INearly the same may be said of the numerous settle* 
 merits of Europeans along the banks of the Kuma and its 
 tributary streams, in the Caucasian countries, founded 
 since 1781 by emigrants from Germany, France, the Ne- 
 therlands, and Switzerland. These settlements at present 
 amount to fifty three ; and there are upwards of one hun- 
 dred more, likewise inhabited by Europeans, in the plains 
 b< rdering on the Wolga. The latter were established 
 alter the seven years' war ; and they have since increased 
 amazingly in population, in spite of the unfavourable na- 
 ture of soil and climate For, in these dreary plains, 
 where neither wood, nor mountain, nor hill, is to be seen 
 for a great distance round — where horse and cow-dung are 
 the only sort of fuel that can be procured — where the few 
 #uit trees that have been introduced are destroyed by the 
 frost in winter, while the heat of summer is frequently 
 suffocating— in these parts dwell, nevertheless, about 
 fifty thousand families of European emigrants, or their 
 descendants, who, indeed, can all support themselves by 
 the crops which they rear, but have no prospect of ever 
 attaining a higher degree of prosperity. 
 
 Since the year 1 Bio, Irkutzk, in the interior of Siberia, 
 has been a new point for the benevolent missionary institu- 
 tions of England. This town may be considered as the 
 staple of the traffic between Russia and China, and it 
 is still in a great measure inhabited by professors of 
 Lamaism. Greek Christians, however, and many Muha- 
 medans, also reside there. Of the neighbouring tribes, 
 the Buraits, of Mongol extraction, and resembling the 
 Calmucks in their language, are the most considerable, 
 or perhaps rather the Mantchoo Tartars, but these are 
 under Chinese, not Russian dominion. 
 
 Three missionaries of the London Missionary Society 
 have been some years stationed at Selinginsk, about 160 
 miles from Irkutzk, where the Emperor Alexander, at the 
 instance of Prince Galitzin, granted to the mission a plot 
 
56 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of land of 112 acres, and 71MJ0 rubles for defraying the 
 expense of buildings. A printing press has been esta- 
 blished there for printing in Mongolian a trasiation oi the 
 Bible, preparing by the missionaries at the expense ot the 
 Bible Society of Petersburg. One of them is employed 
 Upon a Mongolian dictionary and grammar; and they 
 have opened schools for the children oi either sex. 
 
 From this station the missionaries i.ave performed seve 
 ral journeys into the country of the (Jhonnsky Buraits, 
 and extended their excursions beyond the JSertschinsk 
 mountains, considerably to the eastward of Sehnginsk, 
 and the extremity in that direction of the region inhabited 
 by the Buraits. From their report ol the state of these 
 people we learn, that it is in some important respects 
 more favourable for missionary exertions than that ot the 
 tribes scattered round Selinginsk. JSot only is the amount 
 of the population of the former greater than that of the 
 latter, but the proportion of temples and lamas is consi- 
 derably less. Many of the Chormskys are, moreover, 
 fluctuating between two rival superstitions. Shamanism, 
 the less objectionable of the two, appears to be on the 
 decline, and many of the Buraits have renounced it in 
 favour of Dalai-La maism. The lamas ol the latter sect 
 are employing all their influence to destroy Shamanism ; 
 and some of their missionaries have been carried by their 
 zeal to the unlettered tribes in the neighbourhood ol" 
 Irkutzk, where they are erecting temples, and endeavour- 
 ing to prepare the way for the introduction ot their religion 
 in regions where it has been hitherto unknown. It is 
 confidently hoped that the mental excitement thus pro- 
 duced may ultimately prove favourable to the cause of 
 Christianity in this quarter. 
 
 The extensive district round Nertchinsk is inhabited by 
 the Tungusians, a people who have no written language of 
 their own. Their intercourse with their neighbours, the 
 Chorinsky Buraits, has however proved the means of sup- 
 plying in some measure this deficiency. The BuraiU 
 have from time to time introduced among the Tungusians 
 hooks relating to their superstitions, written in the Mon- 
 golian language, which the latter are at length able U» 
 r ead and understand. Thus has an opening been made 
 
SIBEUIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATES. 57 
 
 by the Buraits themselves for the dissemination of the 
 Christian faith among the Tungusians, who will now be 
 capahle of reading the copies of ihe Mongolian Scrip- 
 tures circulated among that tribe, which otherwise, from 
 their ignorance of letters, would have been to them a 
 sealed book. 
 
 The culture of Asiatic Russia is in truth impracticable, 
 unless attempted by the industry of European hands. So 
 long as the unsettled spirit of the original inhabitants is 
 not tamed by schools and refined by Christianity, an inti- 
 mate intermixture of the scttiers and barharians is totally 
 impracticable. Separated Irom one another, the same 
 kind of enmity will continue to prevail between them as 
 between the European colonies and the independent 
 savages in America. Diversity of religions is a much 
 greater impediment to the union of nations than diversity 
 of languages ; since it is easier for men to exchange their 
 language lor another, than their conviction' or dispo- 
 sition. 
 
 The civi'ization of the Asiatic nations subject to the 
 Russian sceptre will be more readily begun and accom- 
 plished in the milder regions than in the more inclement 
 northern provinces, where man, oppressed with cares on 
 account of the prime necessaries of life, has scarcely 
 leisure or inclination for the more noble employments of 
 thought ; where the parsimony of Nature obliges him to 
 remain solitary in extensive tracts of country, and forces 
 him to choose a kind of life, which, from its simplicity or 
 savageness, is completely opposed to a high degree of 
 social cultivation ; where the paucity of pleasures and oc- 
 cupations is productive of paucity of ideas and concep- 
 tions ; and where the mind shares that chill and torpor 
 which frigid Nature throws over those vast wilds, in which 
 the horns and skeletons of an extinct gigantic animal 
 worid, of mammoths and rhinoceroses, or the yard-long 
 claws of a prodigious bird, which reminds us of the kaph 
 of eastern fable, are still found undecayed, 
 
OS SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ATTEMPTS OF THE JESUITS AND CAPUCHINS IN TIBET— 
 RESEMBLANCE OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM OF 
 LAMA1SM TO THAT OF THE CATHOLIC AND GREEK 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 As we approach more temperate climes, man becomes 
 more susceptible of sublimer conceptions and milder sen- 
 timents, and more disposed to an industrious, tranquil, and 
 social life. Such we find him in the elevated valleys of 
 the Tibetian Highlands, where we meet with a gentleness 
 of manners, a social amenity, and a diversity of occupa- 
 tions, which remind us of European civilization. 
 
 Notwithstanding the observations of more recent tra- 
 vellers, of a Turner, a Crawford, and others, we are still 
 very imperfectly acquainted with the extensive and won- 
 derful Tibet, that Switzerland of Asia. In this labyrinth 
 of mountains, the summits of which glisten with everlast- 
 ing ice and snow, while grapes, almonds, ami peaches, 
 ripen in the warmer valleys, the hostile nature's Of the north 
 and south of Asia are reconciled and wedded. Here the 
 sable and the bear frequent the elevated wilds, and the lion 
 and the ape haunt the lowland forests. Many species of 
 plants and animals are peculiar to this region alone, as the 
 gigantic dog, and that sort of goat, the fine wool of which 
 furnishes the material for those shawls that are in such 
 high request. The loftiest peaks of fne Alps of Tibet far 
 surpass in height our European Mont Blanc, and the 
 craggy top of the bold Himalaya, and likewise that of the 
 Dhawalagiri, are said to tower more than twenty-six 
 thousand feet above the level of the Indian Ocean. Agri- 
 culture, pastoral occupations, and mining, employ the ma- 
 jority of the inhabitants. There is no want of artists, and 
 artisans, or of elementary and high schools and there 
 are two written languages, one of which is appropriated to 
 the purposes of civil life and the other to religious matters. 
 
 Every thing here is divided into civil and ecclesiastical, 
 and so is the whole nation, both males and females. The 
 
TIBET. 89 
 
 one part is engaged in an earthly, the other in a heavenly 
 traffic; the former labours for the latier, and the latter 
 fasts and prays tor the former. Here is the chief seat and 
 centre of that Lamaism, which reigns from the hanks of 
 the Wolga to Japan and the snowy mountains of Corea, 
 and which, next to the Muhamedan and Christian, is the 
 most widely extended religion of any among the nations of 
 the earth. 
 
 In tiie eyes of the philosopher who considers the differ- 
 ent forms of the various religions of the inhabitants of the 
 globe, any of these religions acquires superior consequence 
 by its extensive diffusion To us, however, Lamaism is 
 less remarkable for its creed than for its ceremonies. The 
 former is founded on the oriental primitive idea of a Su- 
 preme B«ing, Burchan, represented single or in myste- 
 rious trinity ; ruling over a spiritual world which sprang 
 from himself; obstinately opposed by an evil principle; 
 becoming man to reveal himself to mortals, by means of 
 a power which emanated from him — word of God, light 
 of God, son of God — the Budh and Schaka of Japan, 
 the Fohi of China, the Buddha of Hindoostan, the Gaudma 
 of the Birmans, &c. The Son of God of the Tibetians 
 is named Mahamoony, also Schaka ; he was born of a 
 virgin in the country of Cachemir, and came into the 
 world, according to the Tibetian chronology, about a 
 thousand years earlier than Jesus Christ. He is the prin- 
 cipal object of divine worship. We meet with nearly 
 the same fundamental idea in most of the religions of 
 the warmer regions of Asia, and also with an incarnate 
 God, God-man, demi-god, wonder-working prophet, &e. 
 who has revealed whatever is most sacred to mankind. 
 
 But, as we have already observed, the religious ceremo- 
 nies of the Tibetians are to us more remarkable than their 
 creed ; for it would appear that the oriental religious pri- 
 mitive idea had here assumed the dress of the Christian 
 church. Their doctrines concerning God and his Mes- 
 siah, the devil and hell, the Trinity, and the like, are of 
 themselves sufficiently striking ; but still more so their 
 belief in purgatory, their prayers for the souls of the de- 
 ceased, their use of the rosary, of holy water, of extreme 
 'inction, and many other'practices, which remind us of the 
 
QQ SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tenets and ceremonies of the Greek and Catholic 
 churches. Among the Tibetians, as among the Catholics, 
 all are either laymen or priests. The latter are distin- 
 guished from the former by their dress. They have con- 
 vents of monks and nuns in all the valleys and on all the 
 hills. Boys at the early age of eight years are admitted 
 into the monasteries, and called during their noviciate 
 Tuppas ; at fifteen they become Tohbas, and at twenty 
 complete monks or Gylongs, who, bound by rigid rules 
 and by inviolable vows of abstinence and chastity, devote 
 their lives to exercises of devotion. The convents of the 
 Gylongs have Lamas or abbots, and from them the pro- 
 gressive gradations of the hierarchy ascend to the high 
 ILutuchtes or Trbetian cardinals. The supreme head in 
 spirituals and temporals, the vicegerent of God upon 
 earth, the holy father and chief of the high priests, is the 
 Dalai Lama or Teshoo Lama. 
 
 The hierarchy of Tibet is, if possible, more perfectly 
 or consequently constituted than the Catholic church 
 among the European Christians The Tibetian cardinals, 
 it is true, on the death of a high priest or divine vice- 
 gerent, elect a new one, but this is always an infant, born 
 in the very hour or at least on the day of the decease of 
 his predecessor, in whom, according to their doctrine, 
 the spirit of the late Lama is anew embodied. Thus, as 
 they believe, the founder of their religion and the vicegerent 
 of the Supreme Being on earth remains one and the 
 same. His soul never alters but continues immortal and 
 immaculate, merely changing its mortal envelope, and 
 hence he is styled Lama Kacku, that is, the eternal as 
 well as holy Father of all the Faithful. 
 
 The Lama religion, however, is split into sects as well as 
 the Christian, nor has it been without ifrs religious wars 
 like the latter. But the ancient history of this country is 
 still involved in too profound obscurity ; perhaps we may 
 some day learn more from their sacred writings which they 
 still keep to themselves. The sect of the Shemmers, 
 which is externally distinguished by high pointed red caps, 
 is said to have been formerly the predominant; but that 
 of the Gyllupkas, who wear yellow caps, has since become 
 more powerful. The Shcmmors are still the ruling party 
 
TIBET. 6 i 
 
 n ihc southern province of the Highlands in Bootan ; the* 
 have three Grand Lamas. The Gyllupkas, who occupy 
 the northern part of the country, or Tibet proper, have 
 also three chief Lamas — the Dalai-Lama at Lassa and 
 Putala ; the Teshoo-Lama at Teshoo-Lumba ; and the 
 Jernaut-Lama at Khorka. 
 
 The disposition of the people of Tibet is grave and 
 pious ; their manners are gentle and more consonant with 
 nature than those of the refined Europeans. If, never- 
 theless, a female when she marries becomes at the same 
 time the wife of all her husband's brothers, let it not be 
 forgotten that there might have been in ancient times some 
 particular occasion for this peculiar custom, to which the 
 Jewish patriarchs themselves were not absolute strangers, 
 and that it did not originate in licentiousness but was en 
 joined by the laws. If the convents of the monks as well 
 as those of the nuns appear too numerous, and each of 
 them to contain too many inmates — in the convent of 
 Teshoo-Lumba, for instance, Turner reckoned three thou- 
 sand seven hundred Gylongs for the performance of the 
 daily service — let us recollect Rome and Spain, and the 
 state of Catholic Germany and France thirty or forty years 
 ago. If, besides worshipping God, the people of Tibet 
 reverence their pope or Grand Lama as a demi-god, and 
 a whole series of inferior spirits, let us not judge toe 
 harshly of them, bearing in mind that the superior beings 
 to whom, as approaching nearer to the Supreme, they pa\ 
 his reverence, merely occupy the places of those saints to 
 whom, among us Europeans, shrines and altars are erected. 
 
 Any attempt to convert to Christianity a people with 
 a church constitution so firmly established would be the 
 snore hazardous, the more closely its rights and doctrines 
 resemble the Catholic, and the more intimately its political 
 constitution is connected with the ecclesiastical. Catho- 
 lic missionaries could not fail to be just as unwelcome in 
 Tibet, as Tibetian Gylongs or Protestant preachers, who 
 should repair to Rome to commence the work of conver 
 sion among the Catholics at the foot of the Vatican. 
 
 In spite of this inconsistency, the Jesuits, and after them 
 the Capuchins, were not deterred from journeying hither, 
 andin the character of Lama-Gokhars, or European priests. 
 
 6 
 
t>2 SURVEY OF CIMISTIANrrr. 
 
 proclaiming the crucified Jesus. So early as about the 
 year 1624, Antonio Andrada, the Jesuit, preached in Ti- 
 bet, and he was followed by others of his order ; but they 
 had very little success, and perhaps were not seriously in- 
 tent on accomplishing the object which they professed to 
 have in view. It is more than probable that their chief 
 aim was to profit by the establishment of a commercial 
 intercourse. Hereby they excited the jealousy of the go- 
 vernment, and were sent out of the country as smugglers of 
 contraband commodities. In 1 707, some Capuchins ar- 
 rived at Lassa. The unsuspecting Dalai-Lama granted 
 them hospitable permission to settle in his dominions, but 
 in the ordinance which he issued on this subject he ex- 
 pressly excluded the trading ecclesiastics of the Europeans 
 from the enjoyment of this privilege, allowed the Capuchins 
 to reside at Lassa, so long as they should conduct them- 
 selves according to the laws of the land, and commanded 
 his subjects to treat them courteously. In this document 
 no mention is made of the preaching of a new religion. 
 The reverend fathers wisely took good care not to awaken 
 the slightest suspicion of this intention. 
 
 Francisco Horatio della Penna di Billi was at their 
 head. Their first study was to acquire the language of 
 the country : they sent the Tibet alphabet to Rome, where 
 types were cast from it, and then all the materials for print- 
 ing, accompanied by twelve Capuchins, were despatched 
 from Rome to Lassa : for, the ordinary mode of printing 
 in Tibet by cutting out the letters on wooden tablets was 
 too slow a process. 
 
 The Capuchins actually maintained themselves in their 
 hospice at Lassa for a whole century ; they even founded 
 another at Takpodshini, in the country of Takpoor Boo- 
 tan, and conducted themselves with great prudence during 
 the storms of civil and religious wars: but nothing has 
 been heard of them for a long time, nor have we any 
 information respecting the effects of their mission for the 
 propagation of Christianty. 
 
 It is a subject of just regret that, in mo, the Rev. Mr. 
 Schroter, a missionary stationed at Titalya, in the Presi- 
 dency of Calcutta, was removed by death, while assidu- 
 usly qualifying himself for the arduous work on which no 
 
JAPAN. bo 
 
 one had entered before him — the preparation of the Scrip 
 tures for the inhabitants of this extensive region. 
 
 In countries, the people of which have attained a cer- 
 tain degree of civilization, and consider every foreigner a? 
 less enlightened than themselves, because he is neithet 
 sufficiently conversant with the language to display the 
 store of his ideas, nor possesses knowledge enough to be 
 acquainted with those of the natives, the duty of the Chris- 
 tian missionary is infinitely more arduous than among 
 demi-savages, in whom the European is enabled by the su- 
 periority of his intelligence to excite admiration, confi 
 dence, and respect. Even the most ingenious of the apos 
 ties who could be sent thither from Europe would find it a 
 most difficult task : lor after they had acquired a complete 
 knowledge of the language, institutions, and manners, 
 they would have to encounter a host of prejudices, which 
 are infinitely more numerous among nations more or lest- 
 polished than among the wholly uncivilized, and the mort 
 firmly rooted, the more venerable they have become from 
 their antiquity or the protection of existing institutions. 
 The nations of Europe, with all their polish, are still rich 
 in venerable prejudices, and it would not be advisable for 
 a missionary of sound human reason to set about the work 
 of conversion among us. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RELIGIONS IN JAPAN SEVERITY TOWARDS Tilt 
 
 CHRISTIANS. 
 
 From the preceding remarks it may be easily inferred 
 why the labours of Christian missionaries, after the eti'orte 
 of a century, proved far less successful, not only in Tibet, 
 but also in Japan and China, than among more savage and 
 ignorant nations. 
 
 The Romish church, indeed, found means in the early 
 v>art of the seventeenth century to establish missions in 
 
64 SURVEY OF CHHI3TIANITT. 
 
 Japan, but they were not of long duration. They were soo/ 
 suppressed as inimical to public order and to the estab- 
 lished and only true faith. | The Japanese empire, cut ofT 
 from the rest of the world, and having all its wants, re- 
 sources, and objects, confined to itself, displays in many 
 points a" perfection of civil institutions, resembling and 
 often superior to that of the European. A distinct line is 
 drawn between the spiritual and temporal authority. At 
 the head of each is a particular prince, whom we should 
 style emperor and pope. The dignity of both is heredi- 
 tary. The ecclesiastical constitution of the Japanese is 
 as precisely regulated as the civil ; and all the crude ab 
 surdities formerly circulated on this subject, through the 
 ignorance and misconceptions of the missionaries, scarcely 
 deserve refutation. We learn from Kampfer that the 
 primitive religious idea, which was the groundwork of the 
 religions prevailing about the Indus and Ganges, in the 
 mountains of Tibet, and throughout all farther India, ob 
 tains also in Japan. It is possible that the most ancient 
 religion of the country may be a wretched Shamanism, 
 to which the vulgar are attached ; but notions infinitely 
 more sublime have been introduced from China ; and it is 
 well known thav the Japanese sect of the Siuttos, who are 
 exempt from every species of idolatry or image-worship, 
 profess a faith coinciding with the eternal truths of reason, 
 and worthy of the respect even of enlightened men. That 
 the Japanese priests are more intent on temporal enjoy- 
 ments than sanctity of life and the moral improvement of 
 the people ; that these superstitious islanders perform pil- 
 grimages with great devotion to consecrated places ; that 
 they have numerous convents under rigid rules — these and 
 many similar reproaches levelled against the inhabitants 
 of the extremity of Asia come with a very bad grace from 
 the lips of Europeans. 
 
 After the expulsion of the Christian missionaries in the 
 latter half of the seventeenth century, it was not till the 
 year 1715, that the zeal and piety of the Abbe' Guidotti 
 decided him to renew the attempt to preach Christianity 
 in Japan. He regarded himself as the instrument chosei- 
 by God for this purpose. Men who feel not in their bo- 
 3oms such a conviction ought to renounce all idea of ever 
 
JAPAN. 65 
 
 commencing any great or dangerous enterprise for the 
 benefit of mankind. We arc in the dark respecting his 
 fate. He was followed by Jesuits and Dominicans ; but 
 they too accomplished little. Upon what pretexts, or 
 under what disguises soever, they introduced themselves 
 into the country by way of China or Kamtchatka, they 
 were always strictly watched, and the execution of one 
 of their number, Guido de Angelicis, a Dominican, in 
 1748, proved the hatred borne to every one who appeared 
 as a Christian. From the visits of recent voyagers to the 
 Japanese coasts we know how difficult, indeed, we may 
 say how impracticable it is for Europeans to penetrate 
 into the interior of the country, or even to engage in any 
 pursuit there without being jealously watched : nay, it is 
 scarcely possible to introduce into Japan any books which 
 merely have a reference to Christianity ; for every stranger 
 the moment lie sets foot on the soil of Japan, is searched 
 in the strictest mariner, and all his papers are carefullv 
 examined. If the slightest allusion to Christianity is dis- 
 covered, he is, according to the existing laws, banished 
 the country. Houses too are often searched by the offi- 
 cers of government, and if they find in any of them a scrap 
 of paper upon which Christianity is mentioned or a cross 
 figured, the house is razed to the ground and its inhabit- 
 ants are doomed to death. Such are the accounts given 
 by the Japanese resident at Batavia. Hence it is scarcely 
 credible that the Christian religion should make such rapid 
 progress there, and that even the Emperor himself should 
 be disposed to embrace it, as the Romish missionaries 
 have too hastily or boastingly asserted in their report- 
 transmitted to Europe by way of China. 
 
 6* 
 
66 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANIT*. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS IN THE CHI- 
 NESE EMPIRE DISSENSIONS AMONG THE MISSIONARIES. 
 
 Better hopes dawned in China. The moral culture 
 of the inhabitants of that immense empire is loo far ad- 
 vanced not to favour a more enlightened faith, which 
 has already begun to take root amid the incessant popular 
 fermentations, civil and religious. Shackling and para- 
 lyzing as the ceremonial enforced in the civil relations of 
 the Chinese may be, and oppressively as authority may 
 be exercised from the throne downward ; the empire is 
 of too vast extent, the population of about one hundred 
 and fifty millions of souls — according to the statements 
 of Staunton and Barrow, three hundred and thirty-three 
 millions — too large ; the inhabitants composed of too 
 many different nations — Chinese, Mongols, Tartars, In- 
 dian Lolos, and savage Miaos in the mountains — for the 
 whole to be imbued and held together by the spirit and 
 will of a single individual, the emperor, or of his court. 
 What power would for any length of time bind and con- 
 trol the spirit of all Europe, if this portion of the globe, 
 with its inhabitants, that is to say, with about one hundred 
 and eighty millions of souls, were delivered into the hands 
 of a single ruler ? 
 
 By the diversity of the religions prevailing or tolerated 
 here, a fermentation of ideas is imperceptibly but power 
 fully promoted : for, besides the sublime belief in the One 
 God taught by Confutse, and the Chinese priests, called 
 Lao-Kiuns, we find professors of Lamaism, bonzes and 
 worshippers of Fo, Muhamedans, Jews, who emigrated 
 hither in the first centuries after the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, common pagans, and adorers of the heavenly bodies, 
 and even Jukiaos, or Atheists, who inculcate merely lessons 
 of virtue. At the same time religious fanaticism is not 
 rare ; and by means of it, so lately as the year 1815, the 
 Emperor Vantadshin was precipitated from the throne.. 
 
CHINA. 67 
 
 Most of the civil commotions which for many yeare 
 past have agitated and convulsed China originated in reli- 
 gious motives or pretexts. Setting aside the insurrection 
 against the reigning dynasty of the race of the Mantchoo 
 Tartars, (perhaps excited by the descendants of ihe family 
 of the Mings, dethroned by the invaders in the seventeenth 
 century), others have already broken out or are preparing 
 in all parts. The islands of Formosa and Haynan, and 
 the coasts of Tunkin and Cochin-China, have already 
 shaken off" in some measure the imperial authority. In 
 the north, the Pelin-Kin, that is, enemies of foreign reli- 
 gions, are stirring ; in the west and south the fanatic Ke- 
 dufis (religious assassins) as they are styled by the govern- 
 ment — men, who sword in hand preached Thian-Thee- 
 Ohc, which signifies literally " Heaven and Earth one !" 
 implying fraternal equality of all men and community of 
 property, an. I who had in 1804 filled nine provinces with 
 their wild doctrines, (n other quarters the " Society of the 
 Three Powers' " — Heaven, Earth, and Man — carries on 
 its seditious practices, in which, under pretence of pro- 
 tecting innocence and avenging injustice, it puts to death 
 even persons invested with magisterial authority. 
 
 If the Christian religion has not made greater progress 
 among the people of China, where it has now been 
 preached for some centuries, the chief fault has lain in 
 ihe conduct of the missionaries, or in the spirit, not of the 
 Christian religion, but of that religion which they taught. 
 So far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, Francis 
 Xavier, the apostle of Hindoostan, carried thither disci- 
 ples of Loyola, among whom Matteo R,icci secured the 
 favour of the then reigning emperor by his own mathe- 
 matical acquirements and those of his colleagues, to such 
 a degree that the Christians were allowed the free exer- 
 cise of their religion. Soon afterwards, at the commence- 
 ment of the seventeenth century, Dominicans, Francis- 
 cans, and Capuchins, came to assist the Jesuits in the 
 work of conversion. 
 
 It is well known how the members of the different mo- 
 nastic orders of Christendom transplanted their jealousy 
 and enmity from Europe to the soil of China, and thus 
 injured each other and the sacred cause in which they 
 
68 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 were engaged. Because the more prudent Jesuits felt no 
 scruple to call the true God Thien and Chang-ti, and per- 
 mitted their converts to reverence the wise Confutse as 
 the other Chinese did, the Dominicans and Franciscans 
 inveighed bitterly against them as perverters of their holy 
 religion. The dispute was carried on many years with 
 great asperity before the papal chair at Home, and more 
 than one legate went to China to investigate the matter 
 on the spot. The victory which the discipies of Ignatius 
 could not gain over their adversaries at Rome they 
 achieved, however, by their influence at the court of China. 
 The papal legate a latere, Charles Thomas de Tournon, 
 had to endure a confinement of four years in the house 
 of the bishop of Macao, a Jesuit ; nay, the terrible bull 
 of Pope Clement XI. Ex ilia die, (dated the 19th of 
 March, 17 15,) proved impotent when hurled against the 
 majesty of the Chinese Jesuits ; and Mazabarba, the new 
 papal ambassador to the emperor, had reason to rejoice 
 that Kam-Hi chose merely to divert himself on the subject 
 of the pope, his bull, and his religion, and to believe that 
 the bull was directed solely against the superstition of 
 vulgar Europeans, and not against the sublime and vene- 
 rable doctrines- of the people of the celestial empire. 
 
 When, after the death of the tolerant Kam-Hi, the pro- 
 pagation of Christianity was prohibited and its profession 
 persecuted, the hostility between the monks and different 
 orders ceased not either in dungeons or places of exile ; 
 and the milder sway of that wise monarch, Kien-Long, 
 only afforded a new scope for theological dissensions. 
 This quarrel of above a hundred years standing, about 
 Chinese customs and names, contributed not a little to 
 render the missionaries contemptible or odious ; hence, 
 too, at a later period, the new persecutions directed against 
 them and all Christians in China might be considered as 
 in some degree the result of this disharmony, and of the 
 complaints mutually preferred by them to the mandarins 
 and to the throne itself. 
 
 Christianity has, nevertheless, become widely diffused in 
 the provinces of China, and has continued vigorous in 
 spite of all severities. At the death of Kam-Hi, the Jesuits, 
 whom the bull launched for their annihilation by Gan- 
 
CHINA. GS 
 
 ganelli, left unannihilated in China, had thirty missionaries 
 in the capital itself, and in four Christian churches there 
 about three hundred children and four thousand adults were 
 annually baptized. In the provinces of Kiankieu. Koeits- 
 chu, Yunnan, and Suntcheu, there were large Christian 
 congregations, convents, churches, and other religious 
 foundations. The bishop of Cartoria not long since 
 stated the number of adults baptized in one year, in the 
 province of Fokicn.at 1677, and that of children at 10,384, 
 
 Much reliance, however, cannot be placed on these and 
 other accounts, because we have been accustomed for 
 more than a century to receive much too exaggerated and 
 bombastic reports from the missionaries. We know still 
 less respecting the real spirit of the professors of Jesus in 
 China, than of their actual number. Be it, nevertheless, 
 what it may, it cannot at any rate be other than respecta- 
 ble, since it has often been capable of imparting the most 1 
 admirable courage and fortitude under the sufferings of 
 martyrdom, during repeated persecutions : for thousands 
 cheerfully died the death of confessors, and thousands 
 more sacrificed property, country, and temporal prosperity 
 to their faith. These sacrifices are not made but for such 
 convictions as kindle a divine flame in the soul. 
 
 The measures adopted by the government for eradicating 
 these lofty convictions, exile, imprisonment, and death, 
 are not likely to accomplish, but rather to frustrate their 
 object. Ridicule is a much more dangerous weapon 
 when it is dexterously employed : recourse was had to 
 this also in China, arid even by the government. The 
 Catholic miaaionaries furnished ample scope for it in many 
 of the legends of their saints ; and the miracles which 
 they related, of St. Ursula foF example, were held forth, 
 even in imperial edicts, to the sound understanding oi 
 the Chinese as evidences of the folly of Europeans. 
 
 The ordinance against the Christians, dated the 80th oi 
 January, 1315, is still in force. " How dare the Euro- 
 peans" — such is the language of this document— 
 •'presume to mislead the people of our empire with their 
 silly tales ? Without our permission they introduce priests 
 and other persons, who propagate their doctrines in all 
 the provinces contrary to our express laws. From this 
 
70 SURVEY OF CHISTIANITY. 
 
 time forward the leaders of such a band of seducers shall 
 be executed ; whoever spreads the religion of the Euro- 
 peans, without giving cause for public scandal, shall be 
 imprisoned ; and whoever embraces that religion shall, 
 unless he renounce it, be banished to He-Lan-Keang. 
 Tartars in this predicament shall forfeit their pay. Those 
 Europeans at present resident at Pekin, who are mathema- 
 ticians, and follow no other profession, are permitted to 
 pursue it. All others shall be sent to Canton, to be des- 
 patched to Europe by the first opportunity." 
 
 From this mandate it is obvious that it was principally 
 directed against the missionaries from Europe. In regard 
 to the natives, it left sufficient scope, either for indulgence 
 or severity, to the discretion of the viceroys of the pro- 
 vinces : hence, it was liable to be executed in a ven 
 unequal manner in the different parts of the empire. 
 
 The chief seat of the French mission, to which belong 
 about sixty thousand Christians, is in the province of Si- 
 Tchuen. At the head of it was Gabriel Dufresse, vicar- 
 apostolic, who, having returned from banishment to which 
 he had been condemned, was executed, and his head 
 placed upon the gallows. Several Christians who mani- 
 fested most zeal upon the occasion, shared his fate. The 
 Europeans who were sent to Canton of course described 
 these proceedings as " a furious persecution throughout 
 the whole empire." They related that in 1817 still 
 greater severity began to be shown in Pekin, that upwards 
 of four hundred Catholics had been apprehended and put 
 to the torture, and the like. According to subsequent 
 accounts received at Koine, however, the persecution, as 
 it was termed, was by no means general or violent ; the 
 missionaries in Fokien and Kankieu had not been mo- 
 lested ; and the emperor had repealed, in favour of the 
 Jesuits, the edicts previously issued against them and the 
 other Christians. In the spring of 18 17, twelve Jesuits 
 of the recently restored order were sent from Rome to 
 China, and in Pulo Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island, 
 has recently been established a college, in which about 
 Iwenty students are qualifying themselves for the propa 
 gation of the papal religion in that empire. 
 
 We, nevertheless, know positively from Krusenstern'- 
 
CHINA. 71 
 
 work, that the European missionaries at Canton are vigi- 
 lantly watched, and not admitted into the interior of the 
 empire. The protestant missionaries sent in 1807 to 
 Canton, by the London Missionary Society, were in the 
 same predicament. These were the Rev. Dr. William 
 Milne and the Rev. Dr. Robert Morrison. To the former, 
 who was afterwards stationed at Malacca, where he died 
 in 1822, we are indebted for a highly interesting " Retro- 
 spect of the First Ten years of the Mission to China," 
 a volume, the historical merit of which is perhaps its least 
 recommendation. Nearly fourteen years have elapsed 
 since the completion of Dr. Morrison's Chinese version 
 of the New Testament, several editions of which have 
 been printed, and he has executed jointly with Dr. 
 Milne a version of the Old Testament in the same lan- 
 guage. By means of his Chinese and English Diction- 
 ary, in five quarto volumes, executed under the patronage, 
 and printed at the sole expense of the East India Com- 
 pany, and the Chinese Grammar compiled by him. Dr. 
 Morrison has furnished English students of the Chinese 
 with highly valuable facilities for attaining a knowledge 
 of that very difficult language, and at the same time con- 
 tributed to open more widely the door of access to the 
 stores of Chinese literature and philosophy. But his 
 labours in this department are more particularly important, 
 as they supply the Christian missionary with the means of 
 attaining with accuracy, and as far as possible with "ease, 
 the language of a people who compose almost a fourth 
 part of the entire whole population of the globe. 
 
 The philological labours of Dr. Morrison have also 
 contributed to prepare the way for the future dissemina- 
 tion of European learning and science, through the me- 
 dium of the English language, among the natives of 
 China. The introduction of these into the empire, as 
 objects of study in the first place to the more learned, 
 and gradually of education to others, would naturally tend 
 to loosen the fetters of superstition and prejudice ; to 
 substitute for a contempt perhaps more feigned than real 
 a degree of respect for the inhabitants of Europe, and 
 thus at length to procure a more candid attention, on the 
 part of the more inquisitive Chinese at least, to the evi- 
 dences and doctrines of Christianity. 
 
72 SURVEY OF CIIMSTIANITX. 
 
 It was the contemplation of these reciprocal advan- 
 tages, in connexion with missionary undertakings in the 
 East, which led to the foundation of the Anglo-Chinese 
 College at Malacca, an institution which was not only 
 projected by Dr. Morrison, but to which he contributed an 
 original donation of one thousand pounds, and subse- 
 quently for its annual support. 
 
 In this institution, by its local situation sufficiently re- 
 moved from the interference of the Chinese authorities, 
 and yet admitting of an easy and extensive communica- 
 tion with that portion of the Chinese population which is 
 scattered over the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and 
 occasionally even with those of the Chinese continent itself, 
 are collected together all the requisites for enabling the 
 Christian missionary speedily to acquire a knowledge of 
 the language, literature, and philosophy of China, as well 
 as becoming familiarly acquainted with the Chinese ver- 
 sion of the Scriptures, by which means he may be qualified 
 to go forth and preach the Cospel among the numerous 
 Chinese of the Archipelago ; whence it is hoped that 
 at no distant period native teachers will pass over to the 
 continent of China, to teach their idolatrous countrymen 
 the knowledge of that religion by which they themselves 
 shall have been previously made wise unto salvation. 
 
 In connexion with this object a missionary establish- 
 ment was formed in 1815 at Malacca, on the recommen- 
 dation of Dr. Morrison ; and it has eminently promoted 
 the views of the Missionary Society in reference to 
 China, particularly in respect to the translation, printing, 
 and extensive circulation, of the Chinese version of the 
 Scriptures and other religious publications, and to the 
 direct instruction given to the Chinese at that settlement. 
 In 1823, however, agreeably to an earnest desire ex- 
 pressed by the late Sir Stamford Raffles, then governor of 
 Singapore, it was resolved to remove the college at Ma- 
 lacca, and to unite it with a Malayan college to be 
 founded at Singapore, a small island at the southern ex- 
 tremity of the peninsula of Malacca, containing about 
 twelve thousand inhabitants, one third of whom are 
 Chinese. The ian.^iages embraced by this institution are 
 the Chinese, Malay an, Siamese. Bugguese, Arabic, and 
 
CHINA. 73 
 
 the language of the island of Bali — languages spoken by 
 a population of at least three hundred millions. 
 
 From the report of the London Missionary Society for 
 J 827, it would appear that this resolution has not yet been 
 carried into effect, and that the college is still at Malacca. 
 From the same source we learn that the number of stu- 
 dents in this institution, in June, 182ti, was twenty-eight ; 
 but among these were no more than two Chinese. There 
 were, however, at the same date, at Malacca, seven Chinese 
 schools, containing about two hundred and fifty boys. 
 
 In the present circumstances of China, the public 
 preaching of the Gospel in any one spot of the empire is 
 totally impracticable. All, therefore, that can yet be done 
 is to disseminate the Scriptures and other religious publica- 
 tions, together with such useful knowledge, either literary 
 or scientific, as shall be adapted to enlighten, expand, and 
 liberalize the mind. It is almost exclusively through the 
 medium of books that missionaries can address them- 
 selves to the myriads who people this immense country ; 
 and that method of introducing Christianity among them 
 has been for some years in extensive operation. Prior 
 to 1822, upwards of one hundred thousand copies of va- 
 rious publications in Chinese, including portions of the 
 Scriptures, had been dispersed by the agents of the Lon- 
 don Missionary Society alone, partly among the Chinese 
 settlers in Malacca and Penang, and in various islands 
 in the Malayan Archipelago, and partly among the navi 
 gators and others on board Chinese trading vessels, by 
 which means they have obtained circulation in the very 
 heart of the empire. 
 
 At present, however, the general circulation of the 
 Bible in China itself is almost out of the question, as the 
 government has, from fear of conspiracies, prohibited not 
 only all religious meetings, but also the books of the Ca- 
 tholic church, in order to check that religious fanaticism 
 to which the common people manifest a stronger disposi- 
 tion than ever. 
 
 The Catholic missionaries in China will, no doubt, 
 throw not les< impediments in the way of the Protestant, 
 than the mandarines and the court itself could do : for 
 both carry with them their prejudices and religious enmi- 
 
 7 
 
74 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ties from Europe to Asia. In the eyes of the Capuchins 
 and Dominicans a Protestant Chinese would .he no better 
 than a pagan ; and on the other hand the Protestant mis- 
 sionary could not see the Catholic Chinese kneeling before 
 the images of saints without profound pity. Both parties 
 will anathematize eacli other, as missionaries in other 
 countries have done, and thus render Christianity itself 
 still more contemptible to the better educated Chinese. 
 
 This melancholy spectacle, which has been but too 
 frequently exhibited in other quarters of the globe as well 
 as Europe — witness the missionary reports of Catholics 
 and Protestants— demonstrates how far the generality of 
 the European clergy of all communions have been from 
 seizing the spirit of Jesus Christ. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SURVEY OF TUNKIN, COCHIN-CHINA, AND THE KIRMAN 
 EMPIRE THE TALEE LANGUAGE. 
 
 To the south of China, separated from it by immense 
 deserts and rugged mountains, lies the extensive empire 
 of Tunkin, intersected by ranges of hills and fertile 
 valleys. The inhabitants of this country, about twenty 
 mi. lions in number, of Mongol extraction, have mild 
 mimners and intelligent minds, and are nearly on a level 
 with the Chinese in regard to the aits and sciences. They 
 seem to have derived their religious notions from the 
 nations dwelling at a remote period in the countries con- 
 tiguous to the Ganges. They adore a Supreme Being, 
 and pay still greater reverence to the tutelar spirits of 
 their families and villages in numberless little temples. 
 We are assured that, in the interior of the mountains, the 
 evil spirit alone is propitiated with sacrifices ; probably 
 for the same reason that many European Christians 
 abstain from vice rather for fear of the devil than out of 
 love to God. 
 
TUNKIN. COCHIN-CHINA. 75 
 
 So early as the seventeenth century, the Jesuits, Baldi- 
 ^otti, Marquez, and Alexander de Rhodez, came to these 
 parts to preach the crucified Jesus. The boasts made by 
 them and their successors of the efficacy of their labours 
 among the heathen, that in a short time they had tv\Q 
 hundred handsome churches in the four provinces of the 
 kingdom, and had baptized eighty thousand Tunkinese 
 within two years (1645 and 1646,) seem to have belonged 
 to those exaggerations which the Jesuits are fond of em- 
 ploying, either to enhance the fame of their Order in 
 Europe, or to inspire others of their fraternity with 
 courage to follow them. It is not improbable, however, 
 that they excited a sensation, and perhaps disturbances of 
 the peace, in Tunkin, by their zeal for the conversion ol 
 the people ; for, in 1721, they were all expelled the 
 country, and many of the converts, especially the more 
 opulent, were plundered and even punished with death. 
 The Portuguese sent hither fresh missionaries from 
 Macao; but these were obliged to keep their real object 
 a profound secret. Though wars and civil commotions 
 obstructed the execution of the laws, still those laws 
 themselves were not wholly forgotten; for, in 1775, two 
 Dominicans, convicted of making converts, were publicly 
 executed. 
 
 The seed of Christianity had meanwhile struck root in 
 these valleys of eastern Asia ; and frequently as the con- 
 verts were exposed to public contempt, to the extortions 
 of viceroys, or to the rapacity of the populace, still they 
 persevered in propagating their nobler convictions. Ac- 
 cording to the reports of the Romish missionaries, the 
 Emperor of Tunkin, named Dsha-Loang, is more tolerant 
 and gracious. He has repealed the old law of persecu- 
 tion, allowed the Catholic bishop de la Barbette to erect 
 several convents for pious professors of the Cross, and 
 granted to the Christians the .unmolested exercise of their 
 religion. In 1807 the number of these, under four bish- 
 ops, amounted to 307,000 souls ; at least this was the 
 number stated by a missionary, who had resided in these 
 countries eighteen years, to M. de St. Croix, a French 
 traveller who visited the coast and the port of Turon. 
 
 The territory of Cochin-China. a prolongation of the 
 
76 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 east coast of Farther India, adjoins Tunkin. Here too 
 attempts were made, during upwards of a century and a 
 half, to convert the people, who seem to be more or less 
 connected with their neighbours by language, manners, 
 and religious opinions. In this country as in Tunkin and 
 China, the missionaries first introduced themselves as ma- 
 thematicians to the grandees and at court. As such they 
 enjoyed protection and respect ; they were invested with 
 offices under the government, and by means of these the 
 Jesuits contrived to acquire great influence. In 1 74 1 P 
 Father Siegbert even obtained the honour of being ap- 
 pointed chief dog-keeper to his imperial majesty of Co 
 ^hin-China. 
 
 The Roman Catholic religion had made a prosperous 
 commencement in Cochin-China, when, in the year 1751. 
 all the European missionaries were expelled the country, 
 and the churches demolished by command of the court. 
 This calamity was chiefly occasioned by the folly of the 
 missionaries themselves ; for the Jesuits, Franciscans, and 
 Dominicans continued to cherish here their European 
 jealousy for each other ; and the disputes about Jansenism 
 were prosecuted as loudly at Bak-Kingh and Cachao, in 
 Cochin-China, as in Paris and Rome. Each of the Orders 
 was solicitous to acquire an ascendancy over the rest. 
 Several deputies, indeed, were sent from Europe to restore 
 peace ; the empire was divided into districts ; one was 
 assigned to the Jesuits, another to the Franciscans, and 
 the French missionaries were placed between them : but 
 this arrangement was ineffectual. The decrees of the 
 popes themselves proved unavailing at such a distance, 
 where the perverse and subtle Jesuits contrived to evade 
 the ordinances of his Holiness. These quarrels termina- 
 ted, as we have already observed, in the expulsion of all 
 the missionaries. 
 
 Since the year 1774, they have indeed been again ad- 
 mitted into the country, and more indulgence has been 
 shown to the Christians, who had till then been persecu- 
 ted on account of their faith : but still the present state ol 
 Christianity in Cochin-China is enveloped in profound 
 obscurity. We only know from the particulars given by 
 the old missionary at Turon to M. de St. Croix that, for 
 
MALACCA. 77 
 
 want of adequate resources for the maintenance of semi 
 n tries, the number of tiie clergy was rapidly decreasing, 
 while that of the Catholic Christians in the country amount- 
 ed to six hundred thousand). 
 
 Indeed, when we peruse the numerous controversies, 
 charges, and vindications published about the middle oi 
 the eighteenth century respecting the missions in Cochin- 
 China — vhen we consider, on the other hand, the calm 
 solicitude of the good-natured Tunkinese to acquire the 
 most important kin d of knowledge, and on the other the 
 unworthy, nay, disgraceful conduct of Christian priests — 
 we are doubtful whether a conscientious paganism is not 
 far preferable to such vicious Christianity. When, in 
 1738, the Congregation for Propagating the Faith at 
 Rome sent bishop de la Beautne as Piter Visitator to 
 Cochin-China, the Jesuits involved him in the keenest vex- 
 ations, and played a hundred malicious tricks to disgust 
 him with the mission. Some of them' enticed from him 
 his cook, and others the medical attendant whom he had 
 brought with him to take care of his health. Such was 
 the effect of these and other mortifications that he fell ill ; 
 and they then carried the joke so far as to send a whole 
 pack of yelping hounds to be turned loose in his house, 
 the messenger who brought them alleging, that they were 
 a present from the emperor, who had appointed the Pater 
 Visitator to be keeper of his dogs. Poor old de la 
 Beaume actually died broken-hearted in consequence of 
 this treatment. 
 
 Farther Tndia runs out southward into a narrow pe- 
 ninsula, covered with mountains, morasses, and intermina- 
 ble forests, upwards of thirty thousand square miles in 
 extent. This is .Malacca, the original abode of the subtle 
 and cruel Malays, whose race and language have spread 
 themselves over all the Asiatic islands to the east coast of 
 Africa and the west coast of America, and in the Austra- 
 lian ocean as far as the Sandwich Islands. They dwell 
 in the interior of the country in unconquerable indepen- 
 dence, under various chiefs — poor, content, and arrogant. 
 Their religious notions are as rude as their manners. It 
 is said, that in their immense forests they still sacrifice hu- 
 man victims. Malacca, the most important town of 
 
78 3URVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Malays, is the chief mart for the traffic of the whole 
 peninsula. 
 
 This country too was early visited by Catholic priests, 
 who came hither with the Portuguese traders in the six- 
 teenth century to proclaim the kingdom of God ; but they 
 confined their preaching to the coasts. That their labour 
 was not absolutely thrown away is proved by the existence 
 of a bishop at Malacca, whose diocess, however, is not 
 extensive, nor is his dignity secure. The Dutch cared 
 more about pepper, tin, and ivory, than about the conver- 
 sion of the Malays. After the Dutch possessions had 
 been reduced by the British arms, in the wars with Napo- 
 leon, the London Missionary {Society sent messengers of 
 salvation to Malacca to enlighten the Malays. 
 
 Since Major Symes gave to the world his account of 
 the embassy on which he was sent in 1 795 by the gover- 
 nor-general of India to the kingdom of Ava, new light has 
 been diffused over the empires, countries, and nations, 
 which occupy the west coast, of Farther India, and the 
 greatest part of this extensive peninsula. It was not till 
 then that we again received tidings of the Golden Land of 
 ancient Ptolemy — the Arracan, Siam, Ava, and" Pegu of 
 the Portuguese, of which nothing had been heard since 
 their voyages for discovery and commerce to the regions 
 beyond the Ganges; "or of the extensive empire of the 
 Birmans, founded about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury by the able and enterprising Alompra, who raised 
 himself from the rank of a common huntsman to the impe- 
 rial throne of Immerapoorah, and to the despotic sove- 
 reignty over Ava, Pegu, Arracan, Meklay, and West 
 Siam ; and of the high degree of civilization of those na- 
 tions; of their large flourishing cities; their magnificent 
 palaces, temples, and convents ; their gentle manners, their 
 treasures, their libraries, and their ancient laws and usages. 
 China and Japan have not arrived at a higher pitch of 
 culture, but the Birmans are less jealous and reserved. 
 Even their females are allowed the liberty of social in- 
 tercourse, as among European nations. Their laws, as 
 Symes assures us, are wise and full of sound morality. 
 Their police is superior to that of many countries in Eu- 
 rope. Neither confined by the prejudices of castes and 
 
BIKMAK EMPIRE. S9 
 
 nobility to hereditary occupations, nor cut off by religious 
 ordinances from intercourse with foreigners, the Birmans 
 are naturally hospitable and courteous, even to strangers, 
 and more disposed to manly frankness than courtier-like 
 dissimulation. Knowledge is so widely diffused in this 
 country, that you scarcely meet with an artizan or even 
 an individual of the lowest class of the people who cannot 
 read or write — which is more than can be said of many a 
 country in Europe which prides itself on its civilization. 
 
 Neighbours of the lofty Tibet and the Bramins on the 
 Ganges, the Birmans have in their religious notions much 
 that is akin to those of the people on whom they border ; 
 nay, they have the same fundamental tenets of that faith 
 which, more widely extended than the Christian or even 
 the Muhamedan religion, and far more ancient than either, 
 predominates in the whole of southern and eastern Asia, 
 in the mountains of Tibet as in Tunkin and Cochin-Chi- 
 na, in Ceylon as in Japan and China. 
 
 Here prevail the adoration of a Supreme Being, the 
 reverence of an incarnate God, or divine Messiah, who is 
 worshipped in numberless temples by the Birmans under 
 the name and image of Gaudma and Buddha, and is called 
 by the Siamese Somono-Codom, and likewise Budh or 
 Po, the Chinese Foh. Here too we meet with the doc- 
 trine of the transmigration of souls, of the punishment or 
 happiness of spirits at the conclusion of their pilgrimage, 
 of the clemency and mercy of God, which, as being his 
 first attributes, ought also to be the first virtues of men. 
 Here we again discover the similarity of religious notions 
 and ceremonies to those of the Christians which we found 
 in Tibet. Here too Gaudma is the. Son of God, born of a 
 virgin ; here too we hear of purgatory ; here too we see 
 convents for persons of both sexes, rosaries, religious pro- 
 cessions, shaven and barefoot monks, who daily sing in 
 chorus, and take vows of poverty and celibacy; here too 
 auricular confession and the remission of sins are intro- 
 duced. 
 
 If many of these doclrmes and customs of perhaps the 
 most ancient religion of Asia were not subsequently trans- 
 ferred by Oriental Christians to the Catholic church, we 
 cannot but be astonished at the resemblance of the Catho- 
 
80 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lie church, its tenets, and ceremonies — which, however^ 
 were not adopted till several centuries after the birth of 
 Christ — with those 01 Hindoostan, Tibet, Japan, Corea, 
 China, Siam, Ava, Pegu, Ceylon, &,c. For, since a 
 clearer light has been thrown on ancient Asia, no one 
 would suppose that all these things could be faint and dis 
 torted traces of the extinct JNestorian Christianity. 
 
 As the language of the sacred writings of the Hindoos. 
 Tibetians, and Japanese, differs from that of common 
 life, so also does that of the Birmaus. Among the latter, 
 the Palee is the ancient and sacred language of the vota- 
 ries of Buddha or Gaudma, and it is employed by the 
 Rinnans for religious purposes, as the Sanscrit by the 
 Bramins, the Arabic by the .Vluhamedans, and the Latin 
 by the Roman Catholic Christian. Those who have 
 studied the oriental languages consider the Palee as being 
 in all probability the eldest daughter of the Sanscrit. We 
 know, however, that in the Sanscrit books Palee signifies 
 a shepherd, and that the most ancient inhabitants of 
 Hindoostan were called Palees — an appellation w.uch 
 cannot but remind us of the Pahbothra of Pliny and Mela, 
 that once renowned city^of Indian antiquity, no traces of 
 which are now extant. 
 
 The learned Hager connects with this appellation still 
 grander recollections. It is possible that from these 
 Palees, the Aborigines of Asia, Pahstan (Palestine) 
 derived its name. From this quarter it was that the con- 
 quering shepherds, the shepherd kings, the Hyksos, pe- 
 netrated into Egypt. Bruce in his " Travels in Abyssinia,' 
 informs us that the shepherds of that country are still ,o 
 this day called Balus. The Roman goddess, Pales, in 
 wiiose honour the Palilia were celebrated, was thegodde>s 
 of shepherds. This was scarcely an invention of Rome. 
 It is well known that there arc many words in the Sanscrit 
 which have precisely the same signification as in Latin : 
 and that the Slavonian language has a striking affinity 
 with the Latin, and many words in common with the 
 Sanscrit. 
 
 Saka, the Schaka of the Tibetians and Japanese, 
 received divine honours from the Babylonians of old. 
 Now Sakiah, in Chaldean or Assyrian, signifies a prophet. 
 
BIKMAN EMPIRE. 81 
 
 That he, or Buddha, the founder of the religion of 
 Southern Asia, was the son of a virgin, was known to 
 St. Jerome (Adversus Jovinianum, I. 6). Gaudama 
 (Sommono-Codom) as the Birmans call Buddha, means 
 in Phoenician, Syrian, and Chaldee, according to Hager's 
 explanation, the Ancient, the First, the Antecedent. 
 
 The Shamans of the Lama religion among the Mon- 
 gols and Calmucks, the Shammers or Shemmers of Tibet, 
 whom f have already had occasion to mention, the She- 
 muen of the Chinese, are all fanatical penitents, ancho- 
 rites and devotees, engaged exclusively with heavenly 
 things. Such too were the Gymnosophists, the Sama- 
 naeans of antiquity, who were known to Cicero and Plu- 
 tarch, and of whom Pliny says : Per saculorum millia, 
 incredibile dictu, gens aterna — an eternal people, who 
 have already existed for thousands of years. 
 
 As all languages, both dead and living, point by their 
 affinity to one general mother, from which all, or at any 
 rate most of them, have probably sprung ; so all religions 
 point, in their notions, images, and ceremonies, to the 
 ideas and usages of an extinct aboriginal nation. But 
 to return to the delineation of the present state of Chris 
 tianity among the Birmans. 
 
 When the bold commercial spirit of the Portuguese in 
 the sixteenth century conducted their fleets to the coasts oi 
 Siam and Pegu, they established with their first settle- 
 ments institutions for the conversion of the heathen. The 
 Christian friars and priests of those days were astonished- 
 as they well might be, to find there, among the reputed 
 heathen, monks by whom they were themselves surpassed 
 in many virtues. The convents of the Birmans were and 
 still continue to be temples of hospitality for the stranger 
 and the unfortunate. Priests and novices, beneficent to 
 men, compassionate towards brutes, none of which they 
 slaughter for food, preaching the love of one's neighbour 
 as the highest virtue, are not burdensome, like the Eu- 
 ropean mendicant friars, by collecting alma, or making 
 others labour in their stead. They cultivate with their 
 own hands the land allotted for their support, and have a 
 surplus to bestow in charity. 
 
 The arms of the Portuguese proved serviceable to the 
 
 . 
 
SURVEY OP CHRIST] INI I S 
 
 Birmans in Ibeir wars with Pegu, and caused' the name 
 of the brave Christians to be respected in the country. 
 Tin* missionaries, therefore, proclaimed the Gospel of 
 the western world, without Fear and with success; but 
 when subsequently the gre itness of Portugal declined, and 
 her possessions were reduced by the Dutch, the Christian 
 settlers dwindled both in number and consequence. The) 
 would probably have become extinct, had not France 1 
 during the reign of Louis \l\ ., made fresh attempts to 
 propagate the doctrine <>f the Romish Church in Siam, 
 r>\ the year it-jo, however, the French missionaries 
 were in deplorable circumstances Above Siam, on the 
 
 left bank i»t' the river Maxima, thev had a bishop, toge- 
 ther with a church and school for new converts. The lat 
 ter, mostly tlu 1 dregs of the people, generally came in tin 
 greatest numbers to the Christian schools when the bar- 
 had failed) and disappeared again with the dearth 
 of provisions. 
 
 The missions o[ the Christians in Pegu and A\a fared 
 in nearly the same manner, There are still to be Been 
 the melancholy relies of Portuguese institutions, which 
 the Congregation for the Propagation o\' the Faith at 
 Rome had with commendable attention maintained dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century. In the latter half of thai 
 century, Percotto, the missionary, rendered good service 
 to the sacred cause by the assiduous labours of twenty 
 rears. He was succeeded bj Vicenzo San Germany an 
 Italian, sent by the Propaganda, a pious, intelligent, and 
 truly respectable man. lie was living in 1795 not tai 
 from Rangoon, one of the principal sea-ports «>f Pegu. 
 His congregation consisted, according to Major symes, 
 who himself conversed with him. o\ descendants ot 
 the Portuguese, who, though still numerous, were in 
 genera] in very needy circumstances. They had, 
 lOVerthelesS, built a handsome church, and purchased foi 
 
 their spiritualpaetor a plot ot' ground, on which lie had a 
 
 Commodious habitation and a garden. He subsisted on 
 the voluntary contributions of his flock, for which he per- 
 formed divine service twice a day, and instructed tin 
 
 hildren m the doctrines ot' the Romish Church. 
 Since England formed a closer connexion with the 
 
fflBHAl MMttRE, 
 
 Birroaai tor the lake of tbeif commerce, the London 
 \]j • nonary 8o< ieties have had an eye to tba diffusion oi 
 the religion oi Jesus in these countries* The American 
 Bapti l Mi ionsry Society likewi Rangoon fin 
 
 the mam point. of tbeif pious undertaking. The town, 
 consisting of about five thousand to opled by thirty 
 
 ind inhabitant*, and which, smee tu destrud 
 by (ire in 1807, hai risen more beautiful from i 
 
 onveniently lituated near the tea on the r..'. r In 
 yaddy, which for length may be compared with the 
 Ganges. Hither M< i Judson and Felix Carey, the 
 latter *j physician, Proti tant mi - 
 
 rionaries, in 1807, by the American B 
 They commenced t hfrjr laboura b 
 Bcripturea into Birman, and into the language of P 
 and Siam. The emperor subsequently (in 1813) granted 
 them permit rion to establish a pn ra for printing 
 
 their Bibles. Carey repaired thither, and the empero 
 appointed him hit own physician, and employed him to 
 inoculate bis children with the 
 
 In I«n7 there were no Europeans al Rangoon, e» 
 ing the mil ionariea and a French family. It appears 
 that on the commencement of tl 
 the English, the former were put under confinement and 
 treated with the utii command ofthe golden- 
 
 footed roonan n of the Birman empire 
 
 aominated< The eventi of that red to 
 
 make tic better acquainted with the people of this pari oi 
 
 India, and also to how that then ggeration 
 
 in the account- previou concerning them* Be 
 
 may, the : ed in Januai . . 1826, by 
 
 'i the King of Ava ceded to the East India Com- 
 
 the provinces of Arracan and some other:-;, include 
 
 ing the whole of the We U rn jea-coa » of the empire, 
 
 from the frontier of the British province of Chittagong to 
 
 land of Salangar and the peninsula of Malacca, for 
 
 (tent of nine hundred miles, seems to have opened 
 
 itrance for Christianity into thw part of India. 
 Amherst, the present head-quarterfl of the American 
 
 ionaries, is a new town formed by the British neai 
 'fie mouth of the river Martaban, and the seat of the 
 
34 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 British Government in Birmah. They have now free 
 access to the people without fear, and may employ all the 
 means of instruction within their reach ; they may preach 
 and establish schools in which the principles of Christianity 
 can be taught ; and the natives may also inquire, read 
 the Scriptures, hear the Gospel and embrace it without 
 being subject as heretofore to penalty and oppression. 
 Every advantage will no doubt be taken of this favourable 
 change, and from the last report of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society we learn that in August, 1826, types had 
 arrived from England at Colombo, in Ceylon, for the 
 purpose of printing the New Testament in the Palee 
 which is the written language of the Birman empire. 
 
 Previously to the war, a Baptist missionary had been 
 stationed in the British Province of Chittagong, on the 
 frontiers of the Birman empire, among the Mugs, who 
 were originally refugees from the neighbouring province 
 of Arracan. The congregation thus collected was dis- 
 persed by the events of the war ; but since the restoration 
 of peace and the cession of x\rracan to the British, these 
 poor people have returned thither in a body, with their 
 pastor at their head. Thus has a new and easy access 
 been obtained in a most unexpected manner into the Bir- 
 man empire ; and, from the relative position of this coun- 
 try to China, it is not improbable that the extensive fron- 
 tier of that vast and populous region may ere long be laid 
 open to the Gospel. 
 
HINDOOSTAN. 8. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PURVEY OF HINDOOSTAN FOBMER NARROW-MINDED POLICl 
 
 OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN REGARD TO MISSIONS 
 SCHWARTZ, THE MISSIONARY STATE OF THE PRO- 
 TESTANT AND CATHOLIC MISSIONS — THE SYRIAN CHRIS- 
 TIANS. 
 
 Excepting those countries of Asia which are subject 
 lo the Russian and Turkish sceptre, there is no region in 
 that part of the globe which contains so many Christian 
 inhabitants as India on this side of the Ganges ; nor any 
 in which the propagation of Christianity is carried on at 
 a greater expense. Immense primitive forests, now be- 
 longing by purchase to the English, separate Bengal from 
 the Birman empire. 
 
 Hindoostan, endowed beyond all other countries with 
 natural beauty and riches, in Asia called the garden of 
 God, of which, as the proverb says, the Arab dreams 
 when he chews opium, was as highly celebrated in the 
 remotest antiquity for the treasures of its cotton, pearls, 
 and precious stones, as it is at the present day. The 
 course pursued by the commodities of India to other 
 countries gave existence to large cities and prosperity to 
 the most distant empires. While the caravans from India 
 continued to travel along the Tigris and Euphrates, Baby- 
 lon flourished ; in Egypt, Memphis, and Thebes ; then 
 Palmyra, or Tadmor, in the Syrian deserts, and Tyre ; 
 afterwards Alexandria, Bagdad, Samarcand, Venice, Am- 
 sterdam, London. What nation soever possessed the 
 commerce of India, was the most wealthy and the most 
 powerful ; and that which lost it sank into insignificance. 
 
 India is at this day the main pillar of British greatness. 
 Cut off Hindoostan and England will decline, as Portugal 
 and Holland have declined. Hindoostan, with an area of 
 above a million square miles and a population of one hun- 
 dred and twenty millions of souls, is now nearly one*hali' 
 of it a British province. 
 
 There is scarcely any part of the world in which the 
 8 
 
ob SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 superiority of European culture and civilization is more 
 strikingly displayed than in this. A vast country, one of 
 the richest on the face of the earth, as well by the in- 
 dustry of its inhabitants as by the exhaustless bounty 
 of Nature — a country full of valiant tribes, which, ac- 
 customed to independence, never hesitated to sacrifice 
 their lives for it, and which ages since were strong by 
 religious ideas and civil institutions, by the arts and an- 
 tique science — this country is now dependent on a na- 
 tion not half so numerous as its inhabitants, dwelling in 
 a northern island in a remote quarter of the globe, at a 
 distance of more than five thousand miles ! Scarcely 
 forty-six thousand Europeans live among sixty millions of 
 natives and keep them in awe. Not more than twenty 
 thousand of these Europeans are soldiers, who, being too 
 few in number for such extensive possessions, have asso- 
 ciated with themselves one hundred and forty-four thou- 
 sand natives to defend their conquests as well against the 
 inhabitants themselves as against the contiguous inde- 
 pendent states. Even the civil administration of the 
 country is carried on by about three thousand European 
 officers, who have under them about twelve thousand na- 
 tives. And yet the vast machine works with the utmost 
 security, regularity, and quiet, without stoppage, without 
 disturbance, without complaint. 
 
 This is not the proper place for calculating the tons of 
 gold which Britain derives from the commerce of India, 
 and by means of which rather than by her fleets and ar- 
 mies she holds the ascendancy in her own quarter of the 
 globe, and can involve it in the flames of war or pacify it 
 at pleasure. The friend of mankind is more deeply inte- 
 rested by the efforts of the English to diffuse European 
 knowledge, science, and civilization, among the Hindoos 
 under their sway. To their honour be it also remarked, 
 that they strive assiduously to multiply and improve the 
 schools of the natives. The College of Calcutta is one 
 of the most admirable institutions in which youths des- 
 tined for official situations receive a suitable education. 
 To their honour be it further observed that the conquerors, 
 though unable suddenly to illuminate with the light of 
 Christianity the confused religious notions which the Hin- 
 
IIIXDOOSTAtf. o* 
 
 uoos have inherited from remote antiquity, are yet ear- 
 nestly bent on diminishing the effects of many of those 
 notions. For, as the women of the two highest Hindoo 
 castes were accustomed, in the days of Alexander and 
 Cicero, and assuredly at a much earlier period, to burn 
 themselves of their own accord, with all their valuables, 
 at the death of their husbands, they still continue the 
 practice in our times. Widows of the inferior castes 
 submit to be buried alive. During the summer of 1812, 
 more than one hundred widows of deceased Bramins as- 
 cended the funeral pile and were consumed together with 
 the bodies of their husbands ; and it is calculated that in 
 the ten years from 181rj to 1824 inclusive, the total num- 
 ber of females who thus sacrificed themselves amounted 
 to 5997 in Bengal, and in the whole of British India to 
 G632. 
 
 The original copy of the ancient law prescribes that 
 the pile shall be set on fire before the arrival of the widow, 
 that she may have her free choice till the very last moment. 
 In 1818 the English authorities insisted on the literal ful- 
 filment of this ordinance in the philanthropic hope of 
 saving the lives of two young and lovely widows. It was 
 expected that what the most urgent entreaties failed to 
 accomplish might be effected by the natural horror which 
 the sight of the flames would produce. All was to no 
 purpose. The self-devoted victims, after conjuring the 
 assembled concourse of people never more to obstruct 
 affectionate wives in a similar manner in the performance 
 of a sacred duty, leaped into the flaming pile and perished. 
 The Marquis Wellesley, while governor-general of In- 
 dia, laboured, but to no purpose, to check the horrid prac- 
 tice. His efforts, however, succeeded in 1802 in putting 
 a stop to the sacrifice of children to the idol at Juggernaut, 
 in consequence of vows made by the parents. Infants 
 were formerly exposed or thrown to the crocodiles and 
 sharks in the Ganges or the Lake of Jilka. In like man- 
 ner, Colonel Walker of the Company's service found 
 means, in 1812, to prevail on some independent tribes of 
 the peninsula of Guzerat to abolish almost entirely the 
 legal murder of the female infants of people of the higher 
 classes. In the year 1804 alone, the number of the un- 
 
38 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 fortunate infants thus disposed of in those districts wa> 
 estimated at about seven thousand ! 
 
 Though these as well as other barbarities and degrada- 
 tions may be in a great measure the effects of ancient 
 prejudices or vices in social order, still it is the religious 
 notions of these people that in general produce and main- 
 tain their prejudices and manners, as well as their civil in- 
 stitutions. Thus the four principal castes of the Hindoos, 
 with their eighty-four subdivisions, have sprung solely from 
 their most ancient religious notions ; or what is yet more 
 probable, this fruit of the most execrable tyranny was 
 sanctioned and perpetuated by religion. Hence millions 
 of the ablest and most useful persons, because they belong 
 to the lowest castes, are doomed on account of their birth 
 to scorn and degradation as long as they live. 
 
 Unless the nation be enlightened by a more humane, 
 or rather a more divine religion, any real exaltation of its 
 character is out of the question. Hence it has remained 
 for thousands of years between the Indus and the Ganges 
 confined within the narrow circle of its notions, customs, 
 and way of life. As it was found by Alezander of Mace- 
 don more than two thousand years ago, as it is described 
 by Diodorus Siculus and Arrian, so we still see it clinging 
 to ancient usages, fettered, nay, petrified as it were by the 
 system of castes. It remains a visible relic of long by- 
 gone ages, attesting their existence, like the pyramids of 
 Egypt amidst the other works of human hands. 
 
 Hence the efforts that are now making for the diffusion 
 of the doctrines of Christianity among the Hindoos, are 
 of more importance in their results for the history of the 
 world, than all the plans of conquest and legislative mea- 
 sures of the East India Company : for the ideas revealed 
 to mankind through Jesus will infuse new life in that de- 
 licious climate, and as it were create a new world. 
 
 For some centuries past attempts have been made to 
 introduce Christianity among the Indians ; but they were 
 attended with little success. There was never any want 
 indeed of inspired men, who would gladly have prosecuted 
 *he work commenced by their predecessors. It was not 
 Uie indocility of the Hindoos, neither was it the long series 
 of wars carried on in the country, but the selfish mer 
 
UINDOOSTATs. 80 
 
 jantile policy of England, reckless of every thing but 
 money, that proved the principal obstruction to the diffu- 
 sion of the word of God. The Directors of the Easf 
 India Company even forbade the propagation of purer 
 religious notions, considering them as not requisite for the 
 consolidation of their authority over their immense pos- 
 sessions, or rather perhaps as dangerous. With the same 
 principles of government, agreeably to which European 
 sovereigns at the present day would fain check the pro- 
 gress of knowledge among their subjects, the Directors 
 of the East India Company cared not for all the abomi- 
 nations and mischiefs arising from Indian prejudices, so 
 long as their Asiatic vassals only performed and paid 
 what they were required to pay and perform. No mis- 
 sionary therefore durst show himself in India without per- 
 mission, and that permission was very rarely granted. 
 To confirm themselves in the possession of their con- 
 quests, they even opened the avenues to the most import 
 ant offices to Muhamedans and Hindoos in preference to 
 Christians : nay, while with ostentatious tolerance they 
 afforded the greatest facilities for the propagation of the 
 Muhamedan faith, scarcely any care was taken to impress 
 by external appearances the slightest respect for Chris- 
 tianity. The agents of the Society for Propagating the 
 Gospel, which since 1698 has made the diffusion of Chris- 
 tianity in Asia its favourite pursuit, and in our times those 
 of the Catholic Missionary Society, have even been 
 obliged occasionally to seek in the Danish settlements a 
 residence for their missionaries, which was denied them 
 in British India. 
 
 The only Protestant mission which received any pro- 
 tection was on the coast of Coromandel, where Lu- 
 theran preachers, supported by the London Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge, have been for a century 
 past actively engaged. Such has been the success of 
 their labours, that they have collected around them a con- 
 gregation of fifteen or twenty thousand Christian Hindoos. 
 On the other hand, when, at a more recent period, other 
 missionaries found their way to India without the Com- 
 pany's permission, through the Danish settlement of 
 Serampore, those who were afterwards despatched to 
 
39 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 supply the places of the first on their decease were sen; 
 out of the country by order of the Directors. This was 
 «he effect of narrow-minded, selfish, mercantile policy — 
 the same which even at the present day would not blush 
 to raise its voice against the abolition of the slave-trade 
 and of slavery. Verily the Attilas and Robespierres are 
 not the only masters who, for the lust of money and do- 
 minion, would not stick at the slaughter of their fellow- 
 creatures. There are more petty soul-crushing despots, 
 who, to be themselves the only men, would fain transform 
 the rest of their species into brutes. 
 
 With the year 1813, however, when the Directors of 
 the East India Company were obliged to enter into nego 
 Nations with the British government and the Parliament foi 
 a new lease, if I may so express it, of their Asiatic do 
 minions, a change took place in the situation of India. 
 The benevolent Dr. Claudius Buchanan, who, in hi? 
 travels through the extensive peninsula on this side of the 
 Ganges, had witnessed the baneful effects of that timid 
 mercantile policy to which I have adverted, had at the 
 same time the courage to expose all its vileness. The 
 Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in 
 London laid the deplorable state of religion and the 
 conduct of the directors in regard to India before the 
 public and before Parliament, and showed what inhuman 
 art and assiduity were employed to deprive about sixty 
 millions of British subjects in that quarter of all opportu- 
 nity of acquiring a knowledge of the Christian faith. 
 Between the 15th of February and the 12th of June, 
 thirty-six petitions, numerously signed, were presented to 
 both houses on this important subject. 
 
 At length it was proposed in Parliament that the British 
 oossessions in the East should have in future an inde- 
 pendent church establishment, and that it should be placed 
 under the superintendence of a bishop and three arch- 
 deacons. On this occasion inveterate prejudice, self- 
 interest, and disguised intolerance, took the alarm and 
 loudly opposed what duty, humanity, piety, and sound 
 reason, alike dictated. The minister, (Lord Castlereagh) 
 however, supported by Wilberforee, Smith, Thornton, and 
 other philanthropists, espoused the sacred cause of Chris 
 
HINDOOSTAN. 91 
 
 lianily against Christians and proved victorious. The 
 measure was carried in the lower House by a great ma 
 jority, and passed through the upper without opposition. 
 
 A worthy and pious divine, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Fan- 
 shaw Middleton, was selected to be the first bishop ol 
 India, and Calcutta was fixed upon for the episcopal 
 see of the British church in the East. That vain appre- 
 hension lest the diffusion of Christianity in India might 
 occasion civil disturbances and insurrections, which some 
 already felt or at least strove to excite in England, ha? 
 since subsided. It was merely the offspring of prejudice, 
 ignorance, or pride ; for almost all the ancient sovereign 
 families of the Hindoos are sunk into such complete de 
 pendence on the British government, that they feel no 
 disposition to resistance, especially if they are justly deall 
 with, and not subjected to restraint in matters of religion. 
 which is adverse to the spirit of the doctrine of Christ. 
 
 Since that year ten-fold zeal has animated the Pro- 
 testant institutions for the conversion of Hindoostan, 
 which, before another century has elapsed, cannot fail to 
 produce a total revolution of ideas, a great change ot 
 manners, and an absolute renovation in the character of 
 its inhabitants. Admirable as the generous enthusiasm 
 of the British Societies is on the one hand, so touch- 
 ing on the other is the disinterested devotedness of those 
 who bid adieu for ever to their relatives, their country, 
 and European enjoyments, to pass the rest of their 
 lives under great privations among the Hindoos, and 
 like the first disciples of the Saviour to proclaim the 
 love of God, his paternal relation to man, the retribu- 
 tion of eternity, together with the duties of humanity. 
 The activity of the numerous Bible Societies, which 
 provide translations of the sacred records of Chris- 
 tianity in all the languages of Hindoostan, and annual!) 
 distribute many thousand copies of them, promotes in no 
 small degree the labours of the pious heralds of Christ. 
 Hindoos, Muhamedans, Persians, Chinese, and Catholic 
 Christians, now read the word of God — children read it 
 in the schools — Bramins read it from curiosity ; and those 
 sublime truths, expressed in a child-like spirit, which en- 
 lighten the reason, solve the profoundest problems of life. 
 
32 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY*. 
 
 reveal God, eternity and humanity, in admirable connex-> 
 ion, operate quietly yet powerfully on the heart and un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 I shall not here advert to the Christian congregations of 
 the Britisli and other Europeans in their cities and for- 
 tresses along the coasts of India, or in the interior of the 
 country, nor to their old and numerous churches and 
 schools. These are well known — they are mentioned in 
 every Geography. My purpose is to show, in a rapid 
 sketch, how far the preachers of the Christian faith have 
 penetrated and spread themselves in British India. 
 
 One of the oldest British missions is that of Madras. 
 So early as the year 1728, some Lutheran ministers 
 arrived in this populous city, containing upwards of three 
 hundred thousand Malabars, Chinese, Armenians, Hin- 
 doos, black Jews, Muhamedans, Europeans, and Mcs- 
 tizes, where they found abundant opportunities of satisfy- 
 ing their pious wishes. Here, as well as in the whole 
 country round, great things have since been accomplished. 
 In this province is the most celebrated place to which the 
 East India Catholics perform pilgrimage, the reputed 
 grave of Thomas, the apostle, at Moliapore ; in this 
 province too is Bell's celebrated school for Hindoo 
 children at Egmore ; and, besides the ancient Christian 
 congregations established by the Portuguese and the 
 Danes, many new ones have sprung up, as, for instance, 
 those at Sadras and \V03peri, near Madras. The Lu- 
 theran missions at Cuddalore are only about ten years 
 younger. Those of Tanjore, commenced since 1766, 
 are now extremely flourishing. 
 
 The capital of the kingdom of Madura, dependent on 
 the British, is Tritchinopoli. Here too dwell several 
 thousands of converts belonging to the different Christian 
 churches. It was here, as well as in the kingdom of 
 Tanjore, that the truly eminent servant of God, Frederic 
 Schwartz, a native of Sonnenberg, in the New Mark of 
 Brandenberg, a man imbued with the heroic spirit of the 
 primitive confessors of Christianity, did infinite good by 
 preaching the Gospel for nearly half a century. He was 
 a father to his converts, to his friends, and to his foes. 
 At the head of the latter were the crafty and malignant 
 
HINDOOSTAN. 9S 
 
 Jesuits of Tanjore. In spite of voluntary poverty, stili 
 rich for the poor, teaching and doing good were his 
 habitual occupations. Through his means Christianity 
 spread into the heart of the dominions of Hyder Ali, who 
 iiad a high esteem for the evangelical patriarch ; to his 
 labours was owing the commencement of many Christian 
 congregations ; and through his co-operation arose the 
 numerous provincial schools of the kingdom of Tanjore, 
 which have been productive of such beneficial effects. 
 The European and Hindoo disciples trained by him are 
 still prosecuting the good work in the spirit of theii 
 master. Serfodjee, therajah of Tanjore, caused a monu- 
 ment to be erected for him in the year 1801, in the church 
 at Tanjore, and founded a school in memory of him, at a 
 village not far from his capital, for the maintenance and 
 education of fifty poor Christian children. Such was the 
 affectionate reverence of this Indian prince for the ex- 
 cellent Schwartz. How rarely are such honours paid by 
 European sovereigns to the most meritorious teachers ol 
 their subjects ! 
 
 The whole country around the great city of Calcutta, 
 the capital of Bengal, and the most important commercial 
 city of modern Asia, Canton excepted, is now traversed 
 by Protestant preachers of the Gospel. In these parts 
 there are few villages without Christians, without schools, 
 without Bibles. In Calcutta itself a school-house for 
 eight hundred Hindoo children of both sexes was erected 
 by the missionaries. 
 
 In 1822, schools for the education of native females 
 were begun in the same city, and there are now five hun- 
 dred receiving instruction in reading, writing, and needle- 
 work. The sum of 43,000 rupees has been collected for 
 the foundation of a Central School there, 20,000 being 
 contributed by a native rajah, and 18,000 raised by the ex- 
 ertions of the ladies of Calcutta ; and the first stone of 
 the building was laid in May, 14327, by the lady of the 
 governor-general. The foundation of such schools must 
 be regarded as one of the most powerful means of impro 
 ving the Hindoo character. 
 
 The Church Missionary Society alone has now esta- 
 blished Missionary stations — 1. In the Presidency of Ben 
 
l 34 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 gal ; at Calcutta, Burdwan, Buxar, Gorruckpore, Benare^ 
 Chunar, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Agra, Merut, and Delhi 
 — 2. In the Presidency of Madras ; at Madras, Poona- 
 mallee, Mayaveram, Palamcottah, Cotym, Allepic, Co- 
 chin, Tellicherry, and Nellore — 3. In the Presidency of 
 Bombay ; at Bombay, and Basseen, in the North Concan 
 — 4. In the Island of Ceylon ; fit Cotta, Candy, Badda- 
 game and Nellore. In these stations there are twenty- 
 eight missionaries who have received ordination 
 
 The same Society has a seminary near Madras for 
 training up young men as schoolmasters and assistants in 
 the work of the missions. If is proposed that this insti- 
 tution shall be sufficiently elusive to afford instruction to 
 sixty students, not only in theology, English, and the an- 
 cient languages, but also in Tamul, Gentoo, and Sanscrit ; 
 and that a fourth part of these students shall be country- 
 born and the rest natives. 
 
 At the instance of Bishop Middleton, a college for the 
 education of missionaries, which received the name of 
 Bishop's College, was erected in 1821 at Calcutta. The 
 expense of the building was defrayed out of the donations 
 of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the 
 Church Missionary Society, and the Society for the Pro- 
 pagation of the GospeW which contributed £5000 each. 
 The college is the property of the latter, and that Society 
 is responsible for its support, towards which the Church 
 Missionary Society lias annually voted the sum of £1000. 
 
 The like activity prevails in the Danish town of Seram- 
 pore, about twelve miles northward of Calcutta, and in its 
 environs. Here English Baptist missionaries, who were 
 not permitted to settle in the possessions of the British 
 East India Company, have been assiduously labouring since 
 1799, chiefly in translating and printing the Scriptures and 
 religious works in the languages of the East. Here too 
 they have founded a college for the education of native 
 youth, for which a royal charter of incorporation has re- 
 cently been obtained from his Danish majesty. 
 
 In the town of Cutvva, in the district of Jessore, about 
 ninety miles further north than Serampore ; at Gumalty. 
 near the town of Gour, two hundred and fifty miles north- 
 ward of Calcutta ; at Balasore, in the vicinitv of the tem 
 
1IIND00STAN. 95 
 
 pie of Jaggcrnaut, on the Gulf of Bengal, in the province 
 of Orissa ; at Agra, the ancient, now half desolate me- 
 tropolis of the great Moguls ; at Nagpore, the Mahratta 
 capital of Berar ; at Patna, the great city of Bahar, which 
 is said to contain half a million of inhabitants ; at Bom- 
 bay ; at Chittagong, on the easternmost frontiers of Ben- 
 gal, near the Birman forests ; at Sirdhana, northward of 
 Delhi, not far from the country of the Seikhs ; at Pandua, 
 at the foot of the Chinese mountains ; at Allahabad, where 
 the Jumna falls into the sacred Ganges, the celebrated 
 place of resort of Indian pilgrims and devotees — in coun- 
 ries where formerly Europeans were seldom seen, and 
 preachers of the Gospel never, now dwell British mission- 
 aries, teaching the people and founding schools. 
 
 Not Europeans only, but converted Hindoos, converted 
 Bramins, converted Armenians and Muhamedans, also 
 proclaim the glad tidings of the Gospel. An astonishing- 
 emulation prevails, and nowhere is it unproductive. The 
 missionaries teach with zeal and baptize with caution, 
 The number of the baptized would annually be greater, 
 were not the Muhamedans as well as the Hindoos appre- 
 hensive of losing, by the public profession of Christianity, 
 the consideration which they enjoy among their own peo- 
 ple, arid with it the means of subsistence. Hence most 
 of the converts belong to the lower classes, though there 
 are some from the higher Indian castes : nay, it is fre- 
 quently the case that even schoolmasters who are still pa- 
 gans teach Hindoo children to read the Bible. 
 
 Many of the new converts receive in baptism names not 
 usual elsewhere among Christians, but worthy of imitation, 
 for instance : Abdool- Messeeh, Servant of Messiah ; Igna- 
 yut Messeeh, Gift of Messiah Nuwazisch Messeeh, Be- 
 neficence of Messiah; as three Indian preachers at Agra 
 are actually named ; or Taleb Messeeh, Disciple of Mes- 
 siah ; Burrukut Ulla, Blessing of God. It is already in 
 contemplation to found higher academical institutions 
 for training missionaries from among the natives — an un- 
 dertaking which cannot fail to be crowned witli signal 
 success. 
 
 How willing and zealous soever a missionary from Eu- 
 rope may be, the moment he sets foot on the soil of India 
 
$Q SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 he has to encounter many unexpected circumstances which 
 tend to shake the firmness of his resolutions. The spare 
 feeble forms of the natives which meet him there in all 
 their squalidness, whose uncovered limbs shock the eye 
 and whose harsh sounding language offends the ear, are 
 the more repulsive from their contrast with the haughty 
 carriage and the more athletic figures of the European set- 
 tlers, who move about among them like beings of a higher or- 
 der. If he conquers himself so far as to become their equal, 
 their friend, he has to struggle for years with the acquisi- 
 tion of the language, and still longer with the prejudices 
 of the Europeans against those despised creatures. For 
 even the most philanthropic of the European settlers fre- 
 quently deem it impossible to conduct the morally crippled 
 Hindoos to Christianity, and hence regard the undertaking 
 as a vain attempt of inexperienced euthusiasm or want of 
 judgment. The common Hindoo, on the other hand, 
 full of cunning and selfishness at the same time servile, 
 cringing, and mistrustful, seems from the effect of the sys- 
 tem of castes, entailed for thousands of years upon his 
 race, to be for a long series of generations to come reli- 
 giously and morally incurable. This is the work of orien- 
 tal despotism. 
 
 Besides the efforts of the English for the conversion of 
 the Hindoos, we must advert to those commenced at the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century on the coast of Coro- 
 mandel, and the chief point of which was Tranquebar. 
 King Frederic IV. of Denmark, furnished occasion for 
 them by the liberal foundation, in 1706, of a Missionary 
 College at Copenhagen. The first pupil of this institution 
 who went to India was the learned and philanthropic Bar- 
 tholomew Zicgenbalg. The work begun by him at Tran- 
 quebar was prosecuted by others in the same pious spirit, 
 powerfully supported by the celebrated Orphan-House of 
 Halle, and by the London Society for the Promotion of 
 Christian Knowledge. There are now many flourishing 
 congregations along that coast. 
 
 All that has hitherto been done for the diffusion of the 
 divinelight among the people of Hindoostan has the strong- 
 er claims to admiration, inasmuch as it has been effected 
 through the efforts of private individuals in Europe, espe 
 
HINDOOSTAN. 
 
 cially English and Germans. Kings and princes, amid 
 the magnificence and profusion of their court festivities 
 were too poor in money ano 1 in spirit for deeds of this kind, 
 worthy of superior mortals^ who, with godlike benevolence, 
 love even the people of distant zones as their neighbours 
 Much, however, as those generous philanthropists have 
 effected, it is but trivial in comparison with what yet remain 
 to be accomplished in those immense regions. 
 
 The government of India has at length begun to 
 a benevolent interest in the advancement of knowledge 
 which is particularly manifested in the appointment abou 
 two years since of a Committee of Public Instruction ai 
 Calcutta. There are two establishments at Calcutta, thi 
 Mudrissa or Muhamedan College, and the Hindoo Col 
 lege, which are under the direct superintendence of this 
 Committee, who have also under their care the Vidyalaya 
 or Anglo-Indian College at Calcutta, Colleges at Agra. 
 Delhi, and Benares, and schools in different parts of the 
 country. For the various objects of the Committee an 
 annual sum of 100,000 rupees was placed at their dispo 
 sal ; but, in order that they might be put at the commence ■ 
 inent of their operations in possession of a considerable 
 fund for the construction of buildings and other temporary 
 objects, the grant was made to take effect from the year 
 1821-1822. 
 
 Among the measures adopted by the Committee, with 
 the sanction of government, for extending the cultivation 
 of useful learning, is the establishment of a press capable 
 of executing work in every oriental type likely to be required 
 on that side of India. In these plans they are seconded 
 by the liberality of opulent natives, one of whom has placed 
 at their disposal the sum of 20,000 rupees, a second 
 22,000, and a third 50,000; this last is Budinath Roy, 
 whose donation of 20,000 for the promotion of the edu 
 cation of native females has been already recorded. Thes< 
 sums will be appropriated to the endowment of scholar- 
 ships in the Anglo-Indian College. 
 
 The government of Madras is following the example 
 thus set by the supreme government in respect of native 
 education, by the appointment of a similar Committee of. 
 Public Instruction for that presidency It is in contem 
 9 
 
U3 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 plation to endow schools in various parts of the province, 
 under its control, and to found an institution at Madras for 
 the preparation of teachers. 
 
 I cannot conclude this survey of the operations of Pro- 
 testants for the conversion of the people of Hindoostan, 
 without adverting to the early removal of the first two pre- 
 lates appointed to the newly-founded see of Calcutta. 
 Bishop Middleton died in 18_'2, and his successor, Dr. He- 
 ber, expired suddenly at Tritchinopoli in April, 1827. In 
 little more than two years, the latter had visited almost 
 every station throughout the wide extent of the British 
 possessions where a Christian church could be assembled ; 
 ind he delighted to consider himself as the chief missionary 
 of India. When the news of his decease reached Eng- 
 land, the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, 
 which, as I have elsewhere stated, had voted 1000Z. annu- 
 ally to Bishop's College, Calcutta, resolved, in token of 
 respect for his lordship's memory, to apply the grant for 
 18-6, and such portion of former grants as had not been 
 appropriated, in founding two theological scholarships in 
 that college, for the education of missionaries, to bear the 
 name of bishop Heber's Missionary Scholarships. It was 
 at the same time resolved that a memorial should be pre- 
 sented to government and to the Directors of the East 
 India Company, representing the necessity of appointing 
 more than one bishop to so immense a diocess ; as it is 
 impracticable for any prelate to superintend so vast a 
 charge, and both bishop Middleton and bishop Heber are 
 considered to have sacrificed their lives in the performance 
 of duties which they were anxious conscientiously to dis- 
 charge. In this memorial the Missionary Society has 
 been joined by the Societies for Propagating the Gospel 
 and for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and it will no 
 doubt have due weight in the quarters to which it has been 
 addressed. 
 
 Less has been achieved by the Catholics than by the 
 Protestants in the countries of Hindoostan : nay, many of 
 the Catholic congregations, which are by far the most nu- 
 merous from the river Crishna to Cape Comorin, are in the 
 most neglected condition. The chief superintendence of 
 the Catholic church in India belongs by right to two arch- 
 
IIINDOOSTAN. 99 
 
 bishops, one of whom at Goa is styled metropolitan and 
 primate of the East. The other resides at Cranganore. 
 on the coast of Malabar, in the British presidency of Bom- 
 bay : but the latter see has been vacant ever since the end 
 of the last century, and it has hitherto been under the ad- 
 ministration of a vicar-general only, appointed by the me- 
 tropolitan of Goa. 
 
 Under these archbishops there are two episcopal sees, 
 that of St. Thomas, near Madras, and that of Cochin : but 
 these have also been vacant since the beginning of this 
 century, and, as it appears, forgotten by the court of Por- 
 tugal during the vicissitudes of its fortunes at home. Here 
 also vicars-general, appointed by the metropolitan, act as 
 substitutes for the bishops. All tite'se prelates have invari- 
 ably been nominated by the kings of Portugal, who assert- 
 ed their right of patronage over the East India church, and 
 even denied permission to other Catholic powers to send 
 out missionaries. The Romish Curia, however, regardless 
 of this claim, appointed from the tirst bishops in partibus. 
 by the title of vicars-apostolic, who, independent of the 
 Portuguese prelates, were subordinate only to the Con- 
 gregation for the Propagation of the Faith at Rome. 
 There are at present three* of these vicars-apostolic, at 
 Bombay, at Verapalli in Cochin, and at Pondichery, who 
 have under them missionaries for visiting the congrega- 
 tions of their diocesses. 
 
 According to the statement of one of these missiona- 
 ries, the Abbe Dubois, who had in 1815) resided and 
 travelled about in India tor the spa'-e of twenty-five years, 
 about four-fifths of the population of the Portuguese pos- 
 sessions are Christians. Under the immediate superin- 
 tendence of the metropolitan of Goa there are about five 
 hundred thousand souls, but to these belong also the Ca- 
 tholics in the island of Ceylon, about one hundred and 
 forty thousand in number, provided with numerous black 
 ministers, educated in the seminary at Goa. Upwards of 
 two thousand Indo-Christian priests and monks are under 
 his control 
 
 The bishopric of Cranganore, which extends to Madura 
 and the banks of the Crishna, numbered so far back as the 
 middle of the last century about two hundred thousand 
 
100 SURVEY OF CIIBISTIATs'ITV. 
 
 converted Hindoos : now there are no more than from 
 ihirty to forty thousand. The bishopric of St. Thomas 
 contains about sixty thousand, and that of Cochin only 
 thirty thousand. 
 
 Of the three Romish vicars-apostolic, the vicar of Bom- 
 bay has scarcely more than ten thousand souls in his dio- 
 cess ; the vicar of Pondichery from thirty-four to thirty- 
 six thousand, and the vicar of Verapalli eighty thousand 
 Christians b6rn. The missionaries of the latter alone con- 
 tinue to make converts among the Hindoos, baptizing an- 
 nually four or five hundred adult heathen. For this duty 
 partly Italian Carmelites and partly native priests are em- 
 ployed. In the environs of Verapalli, Cochin, and Tra- 
 vancorc, on the Malabar coast, the tribe of the Nairs forms 
 the greatest part of the population. They are the most 
 rigid of all the Hindoos in the observance of the ordinances 
 relative to castes, the slightest violation of which entails^ 
 irrevocable expulsion on the offender. This circumstance 
 promotes the object of the missionaries. The culprits, 
 abandoned by all their friends and clan, have no alterna- 
 tive but to perish of hunger or to turn Christians or Mu- 
 hamedans: by far the greater number choose the Koran in 
 preference to Christianity ; because the Moslem faith 
 grants greater latitude and more temporal indulgence. 
 
 Under an apostolic prefecture, appointed by and de- 
 pendent on the Propaganda of Rome, there is also a mis- 
 sion of Italian Capuchins at Madras. They number in 
 their district about twelve thousand Christians. A cen- 
 tury ago the Capuchins penetrated through the heart ol 
 Ilindoostan to Nepaul and Tibet, preaching the cross, but 
 to very little purpose : this was also the case with the 
 former missions of the French Jesuits and the Portuguese 
 Augustines. Relics of their activity are still to be seen 
 in unfrequented chapels at Agra, Lucknow, Patna, and 
 other places, in the province of Bahar. The small con- 
 gregations consist not so much of converted Hindoos, as 
 descendants of the Portuguese and half-caste persons, 
 that is, the offspring of the intermarriages of Europeans 
 with Indian women. 
 
 In the province of Tinnevelly, belonging to the Madras 
 presidency, the Roman Catholics have fifty-three churches 
 
IIINDOOSTAK. 101 
 
 die congregations of which amount to thirty thousand 
 persons. They are divided into eight districts, each ol 
 which is committed to the charge of a country-born Por- 
 tuguese priest, educated at Goa ; but about half these 
 districts were vacant in 1822. For these thirty thousand 
 souls there is but one school, containing about forty 
 scholars. To the ceremonies of the Komish church these 
 nominal Christians unite the customs of the heathen, 
 drawing the rutt and carrying the images of the saints in 
 procession just as the Hindoos do those of their deities. 
 The distinction of castes is also observed among them. 
 
 In the same province such extraordinary success has, 
 since 1823, attended the labours of the agents of the 
 Church Missionary Society, that in September, 1825, they 
 had in one hundred and twenty-five villages more than a 
 thousand families under Christian instruction. 
 
 The decline of the Catholic church in Hindoostan is 
 -carcely so great as the decline of the religious spirit itself 
 in its congregations. This the missionaries know and 
 deplore. Most of the Catholic Hindoos live in the gross- 
 est ignorance. With all the meanness entailed on them 
 by their former reprobate* castes they generally combine, 
 as Christians, the debauchery and licentiousness of the 
 dregs of European society All their piety is confined 
 to the observance of a few outward ceremonies, and to 
 the recital of a few forms of prayer, which they scarcely 
 understand. Of the higher sense of duty, of the elevation 
 and sanctification of the heart by the belief in God, they 
 have not the slightest notion. They are the same heathen 
 as ever, only with the rosary and cross. Saints supply 
 to them the places of the old Hindoo deities. A Hindoo 
 and a Catholic once came to archdeacon Corrie, at Agra, 
 that he might settle a dispute which had arisen between 
 them respecting the cause of a recent earthquake. The 
 Hindoo swore that the phenomenon was caused by the 
 elephant, which bears the earth on his back, lifting up 
 one of his legs to rest it. The Christian, on the contrary, 
 maintained that it was occasioned by the Virgin Mary's 
 transferring the earth from her hand to that of her son. 
 in order to take a little repose. 
 
 When Tippoo Sultan set about converting all the inha- 
 9* 
 
iO£ SURVEY OF CURISTIAKITV. , 
 
 bitants of his dominions to the Koran, he suddenly caused, 
 in the year 1784, all the Catholic Christians to be brought 
 under a strong escort to Seringapatam. The total num- 
 ber, men, women, and children, was near sixty thousand 
 He insisted on their becoming Muhamedans and submit- 
 ting to circumcision. The people had no scruple to 
 comply with his commands. Not one among these thou- 
 sands conceived the idea of dying rather than abjure his 
 religion. After Tippoo's dovvnfal the apostates returned 
 and reconciled themselves with the Christian church, as- 
 serting with Jesuitical cunning, that their recantation was 
 but an outward show, and that they had never ceased to 
 cherish the true faith in their hearts. 
 
 Why Christianity has made so little impression and 
 produced so little improvement of the heart in the Catho- 
 lic missions, is a problem easy of solution. The Romish 
 ministers were in general satisfied with imparting to 
 their converts a tew obscure notions of God, the Virgin 
 Mary, Christ and the Saints, of hell, purgatory, and heaven ; 
 they taught them besides to join in a few of the ceremo- 
 nies of the church, and the Christian was complete. The 
 adults remained without further instruction ; the children 
 without scholastic education ; and all without Bible or 
 book of devotion, whence they might have derived clearer 
 conceptions of the nature of the doctrine given to man- 
 kind by the Saviour of the world. 
 
 This very depravity of most of the Catholic Hindoos, 
 or " Portuguese," as they are called, excites only a hor- 
 ror of Christianity in the minds of the unconverted In 
 dians ; and hence well-disposed persons, when they have 
 the misfortune to be excluded from their caste, betake 
 hemselves in preference to the religion of the Prophet of 
 Mecca. None of those apostates, indeed, are respected 
 by the Asiatics. For though these discover falsehood in 
 every strange doctrine, still they cannot bestow their con- 
 fidence on him who abandons the religion of his ances- 
 tors. In foreign creeds they perceive error only, but in 
 apostacy a depraved mind, which contaminates itself with 
 the guilt of perfidy, or wantonly sports with sacred things. 
 But still they judge more indulgently of one who goe? 
 oxer to the Koran than of him who assumes the Cros? 
 
HXenXMKTAK 10t) 
 
 of the Europeans : the pride of the Hindoo and the Mooi 
 . looks down with contempt on the " Franks," as they are 
 termed. These are considered rather as subtle sophists 
 than as persons of sound reason, who, to gain money 
 and to squander it again, renounce their country and their 
 family, justice, truth, and humanity, and carry misery along 
 with them where' , they go. 
 
 On the Mai ar coast, especially in the territory of 
 Travancore, there are still many Jacobites. They are 
 commonly called Syrian Christians, partly because they 
 use in their liturgy the ancient Syrian language, which is 
 no longer spoken by the people, and partly because the 
 original seat of their church was in Syria. Their episco- 
 pal see of Travancore, to which belong about fifteen thou- 
 sand souls, is oneol the twenty-one diocesses subordinate to 
 the chair of the patriarch of Der-Zaaferan, in Mesopota- 
 mia, whom I have already mentioned in treating of the 
 ^tate of Christianity in Asia Minor. Of course the Catho- 
 lics and Jacobites in this country heartily despise each 
 other, out of pure Christian affection, though they differ 
 merely in their tenets respecting certain divine mysteries 
 which nobody comprehends For the rest, they closely 
 resemble one another in three points — in their hierarchical 
 constitution, for the Jacobites also have bishops, priests, 
 and inferior clergy ; in their language, as the Catholics 
 too employ the ancient Syrian in their churches ; and in 
 ihe ignorance and depravity of both clergy and Jaity^ 
 
 The Jacobites pride themselves, if not on their Chris- 
 tianity, at least on the antiquity of their church, as the first 
 Christian church in India. They are not to be persuaded 
 that Bar-Thomas, a Syrian, was their apostle : but they 
 derive their origin from the disciple of Jesus of the same 
 name, from whom they would not on any account with- 
 draw the ancient veneration, in order to transfer it to 
 Peter and Paul. They go on pilgrimage to St. Thomas, or 
 Meliapore, where, as tradition relates, he was put to death 
 by the Bramins, and to Maleatore, on the river Feira, in 
 the Travancore territory, where he is said to have preached 
 and baptized. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the tradition of these peo- 
 ple that the apostle Thomas planted Christianity amon^r 
 
10 \ SURVEY OF CHRISTIAKITV. 
 
 them, yet so much may be considered as established be- 
 yond contradiction : — that they existed here as a well re- 
 gulated church connected with the Syrian church in Per- 
 sia so early as the year 535, the period when Cosmas 
 travelled to this coast — that at a somewhat later period, 
 but certainly prior to the year 895, considerable grants, 
 immunities, and precedences, were conferred on them by 
 one of the Perumal princes — and that the greater part of 
 these privileges have been .uninterruptedly enjoyed and 
 are now visible among them. Every person of observa- 
 tion, visiting the interior of the country, is necessarily led 
 to this conclusion. He discovers a race of Christians, dif- 
 fering widely in their general manners from the later spe- 
 cimens of native converts, who, from the time of the Por- 
 tuguese settlements, have been so numerous on the coast — 
 bearing indeed undoubted marks of the Syrian original and 
 of the high dignity to which, in former times, they were 
 raised — a people, in short, v\ ho identify themselves with 
 the subjects of the above traditions, and to whom the 
 names of Portuguese and Roman Catholics are compara- 
 tively new. 
 
 At the time of their first discovery by the Portuguese, 
 the Syrian Christians were distinguished by their scrupu- 
 lous regard to truth and their general manliness and inde- 
 pendence of character, and considered as the chief strength 
 of the nations who employed them. JNot withstanding the 
 deterioration which has since taken place, the chief causes 
 of which are to be referred to the appearance of the Ro- 
 man Catholics on these shores, and the contest which this 
 church has consequently had to sustain for three centuries 
 with the unremitted vigilance, force, and intrigue of a 
 usurping and intolerant hierarchy — the mutual fears, suspi- 
 cions, and jealousies, fomented by their enemies, and ter- 
 minating in a fatal and apparently irreconcileable schism 
 in their own body — the destruction of their best ancient 
 monuments, during the short calamitous interval in which 
 they were all nominally subjected to the papal power — 
 together with the interruption of that regular intercourse 
 with Syria, on the feeling of which depended that peculiar 
 spirit and individuality of character for which they were 
 %merly so distinguished — the character of the Syrian 
 
HINDOOSTAN. 106 
 
 Christians still presents many points of superiority. The 
 duplicity and deceit for which the natives of India are pro- 
 verbial are not features of their character ; on the contra^ 
 ry, they possess in no small degree the opposite virtues of 
 honesty and plain-dealing, accompanied with a simplicity 
 of manner, which distinguish them in the eye9 ofthestran 
 ger from the other inhabitants of the country. 
 
 It is probable that these people were formerly much 
 more numerous than they are at present. They now 
 reckon up eighty-eight churches belonging to their body, of 
 which fifty-rive have maintained their independence of the 
 Roman pontiff. The number of families belonging to the 
 latter is computed at thirteen thousand. The number of 
 officiating priests called catanars. is one hundred and 
 forty-four. These are wholly supported by the offerings 
 of the laity on festivals, and the administration of the 
 occasional rites of the church, which for the most part 
 afford very scanty support 
 
 A desire for the improvement of the state of this church 
 has of late years been manifested by its metropolitan, and 
 encouraged by the English missionaries at Cotym. His 
 objects are more particularly directed to the circulation of 
 the Scriptures in the Syriac and vernacular tongues, with 
 other works of religious and general information, the 
 instruction of the clergy and of youth, and the erection 
 and enlargement of churches. The British Government 
 and the religious societies have manifested a readiness to 
 co-operate in these designs, which promise to be produc- 
 tive of the most beneficial results. Major Monro, resi- 
 dent of the East India Company at Travancore, conceived 
 in 1815 the plan of erecting a school for the education of 
 Syrian priests and laymen at Cotym. in the territory of 
 Travancor, and with the aid of the British Missionary 
 Societies he carried it into execution. Here Priests and 
 catanars, or inferior ecclesiastics, receive instruction in 
 the Syrian language. A press for printing Syrian Bibles 
 has also been established. Thus, perhaps, that difference 
 between Catholics and Jacobites, which, centuries ago, 
 synods vainly attempted to do away with, may ultimatelv 
 bo removed by social education, 
 
106 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that before Europeans had sef 
 foot on Hither fndia, there existed a small flock of Chris- 
 tians in the midst of inimical Bramins and Muhamedans, 
 and that it had maintained itself there upwards of fourteen 
 centuries. Though at last all tl at remained of its reli- 
 gion was a confused medley of superstitious notions and 
 ceremonies, still it adhered to them with invincible con- 
 stancy. But, with the ignorant, prejudice and custom 
 are the substitutes for conviction, and are therefore as dif- 
 iicult to be eradicated as the latter. Hence it is, that 
 many religions of antiquity and many churches still sub- 
 sist, though the more holy spirit in which they originated 
 has long been extinct. 
 
 CHAPTER IX-. 
 
 THE PERSIAN CHRISTIANS — ZABEANS SUFFAS. 
 
 The religion of the Prophet of Mecca, widely as it is 
 diffused throughout Asia, and zealously as it is supported 
 by its professors, has not less degenerated and declined 
 in this quarter of the globe than the religion of Jesus. 
 Those are nevertheless egregiouslv mistaken, who, swayed 
 by partiality or inspired by the divinity of the Christian 
 faith, hope to propagate it with the greater facility among 
 the Muhamedans, the ruder the religious notions of the 
 latter may be. 
 
 In Persia the Zabeans formed long since a sort of in- 
 termediate link between the Christians and the Muhame- 
 dans. We are yet but very imperfectly accpiainted with 
 the origin and history of these people, who are usually 
 considered as one of the sects which have sprung from 
 Islamism. They reverence in fact the Prophet of Mecca 
 and many of his institutions, because they deny not that 
 God has revealed himself to the human race at different 
 times and under various circumstances by means of dele- 
 gates : but they attach no merit to pilgrimages to the hoh 
 
1'EKSIA. 107 
 
 unib. They assert that John the Baptist was their origi 
 nal teacher, and practise baptism as well as circumcision 
 They are acquainted with the Lord's Supper, and pay 
 devotion to the cross : — indeed they have borrowed some 
 tiling from all the religions which at different times have 
 prevailed in Persia. Still there is no way less likely for 
 effecting a union between Muiiamedans and Christians 
 than through the gates of the Zabean Church. 
 
 The Christians of Persia, held in the same contempt 
 there as the Jews in other countries, belong to the Arme- 
 nian church, which has degenerated not less than the 
 Greek under Turkish dominion. In former times, Rome 
 sent missionaries, not so much for the conversion of those 
 who were not Christians, as to bring about a union of 
 the Armenians with the chair of St. Peter. Their efforts 
 were partially successful. Those who joined the Catholic 
 church have their Archbishop at Nakshivan in the pro- 
 vince of Erivan, and the others their patriarch, the 
 •• Ilugas Kathaltos, 1 ' at Edsclnniiissin. 
 
 This patriarch — in the year 1817, his name was Efrem 
 — has about three hundred monks in his convent at the 
 foot of Mount Ararat, the lofty summit of which is cover- 
 ed with everlasting snow. The Christian villages belong- 
 ing to the convent w r ere wealthy ; but the monastery 
 itself has been gradually so impoverished oy the extortions 
 of the Persian governor of the province of Erivan, that 
 it has nothing left but its relics, such as the spear which 
 pierced the side of our Saviour, a piece of the wood of 
 Xoah's ark, which was brought to St. Gregory, when 
 asleep, and the like. Kotzebue, in his Narrative of the 
 Journey of the Russian Embassy to Persia, relates vari- 
 ous particulars respecting this convent which excite our 
 pity. 
 
 Ft is a lon«- time since any thing was heard of Catholic 
 missions in Persia. So much the more strenuous are the 
 efforts of the British and Russian Bible Societies and Mis- 
 sionary Institutions, to counteract the Koran, or at least 
 to purify the corrupt faith of the Armenians by circula- 
 ting the original records of Christianity in Persian and 
 Armenian translations. The provinces latterly ceded by 
 Persia to Russia afford a sufficient field for their activitv. 
 
108 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 But large quantities of Bibles have been already sent into 
 the heart of Iran, or Persia Proper ; and the number of 
 merchants, or traiveUiog literati who annually visit Astra- 
 can, amounting in a year to several thousand, contribute 
 not a little to spread the sacred Scriptures of the Christians. 
 These, indeed, are well known even at the court of the 
 Shah himself. According to the assurance of Dr. Camp- 
 bell, who resided several years at the Court of Teheran, 
 and was at Petersburg in 1M6, but returned to Persia, 
 the heir apparent to the throne could repeat whole pas- 
 sages of the New Testament by heart. 
 
 From the last report of the British and Foreign School 
 Society, we learn tnat during the late visit to the East of 
 the Rev. Joseph Wolff, whose efforts are more particu- 
 larly directed to the conversion of Jews, a strong desire 
 was expressed in Persia to receive competent teachers 
 from England, and assurances were given by various indi- 
 viduals of the highest rank that they would support and 
 patronize them. A meeting was in consequence held in 
 London, in March, 1827, and a Committee formed and a 
 subscription opened, for the purpose of " sending out 
 pious and well qualified teachers to prepare the way for 
 the Holy Scriptures" in this country. 
 
 We must beware, however, of inferring too much from 
 these circumstances. Setting aside that Muhamedans, if 
 they were to apostatize from Islamism, would be perse- 
 cuted with mortal rancour by the professors of their for- 
 mer faith, it is no easy matter to render much in the 
 church ceremonies and subtle dogmas of the Christian 
 parties acceptable to them. Persians of e ucation, Mu- 
 hamedans of reflecting minds, have no hesitation to ad- 
 mit the superiority of the pure, spiritual truths of Chris- 
 tianity, such as Jesus himself taught, to the precepts of 
 the Koran, which flatter the passions and rather address 
 themselves to what is earthly. But, there are points in 
 our tenets, which they regard with much the same kind of 
 look as a staunch Catholic would cast at a zealous Cal- 
 vinist of Geneva, who should inculcate the doctrine of 
 elective grace, or a well informed Protestant if a Capu- 
 chin were to threaten him with purgatory. . 
 
 The more enlightened Persians entertain just as little 
 
CEYLON. 10^ 
 
 reverence for the doctrines and miracles of Jslamism 
 There are thousands among them who, without publicly 
 abjuring- the Prophet, find the whole substance of their 
 faith and peace of mind in the adoration of the one 
 Supreme (io<l, and in the fulfilment of their duties to Him 
 and to their fellow-creatures. But they take good care to 
 conceal their real sentiments within their own breasts, lest 
 they should expose themselves to the anathemas of the 
 vulgar and of the priests. They are, nevertheless, known 
 in Persia, and are called Sulfas — philosophers, or free 
 thinkers. They arc in Persia much the same as the fol- 
 lowers of Confutse in China, the Siutos in Japan, and 
 the most enlightened of the Catholics, Protestants, and 
 Jews, in Europe. The latter, as it is well known, receive 
 precisely the same name from the other members of the 
 religion to which t hey belong. There is but little differ- 
 ence between the Asiatic and European vulgar, and pro- 
 bably just as little between the common herd of priests, 
 Rabbis, Muftis, Bramins, Bonzes, Gylongs, Talapomsj 
 vV:c. in both parts of the world. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CEYLON AND JAVA STATE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE 
 
 OTHER LARGE ASIATIC ISLANDS. 
 
 We now proceed to take a survey of the Asiatic islands. 
 
 Among the thousands of islands which begird the con 
 tinent of Asia, Ceylon, with its three hundred thousand 
 inhabitants, is particularly remarkable in a religious point 
 Of view. The Indians, as well beyond as on this side of 
 the Ganges, and even the Christians of St. Thomas, have 
 from the remotest antiquity regarded this island with pecu- 
 liar veneration. The IMalabars call it Lanca, or the 
 Holy Land. The range of mountains which intersects 
 Ceylon is crowned by the lofty Talmala and Hamale), 
 which are visible at sea to a great distance. Here, at the 
 10 
 
110 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sources of three rivers, according to the notions of the 
 Hindoos, God created the progenitor of the human race, 
 and buried him at his death. From this island came, ac- 
 cording to the obscure traditions of Farther India, the 
 belief in Buddha, or Budh, which extends over by far 
 the greater part of Asia. Buddha, say the priests of 
 Ceylon, has already appeared four times in the world, 
 the fourth time as a man, born of a virgin. His religion 
 shall prevail five thousand years, and then a fifth Buddha 
 will reveal himself. 
 
 Justice and wisdom are called the main pillars of the 
 religion of Buddha. The people, especially those of the 
 lowest castes, are nevertheless demoralized and depraved, 
 and in the higher castes frequently unbelieving or skep- 
 tical. Owing to the prodigious multitude of inferior dei- 
 ties, many of the Bramins feel themselves in danger of 
 ultimately neither having, nor believing in, any God at 
 all. In Ceylon the Priests reckon up 120,535 gods. The 
 polytheism of ancient Rome was a trifle compared with 
 this. Enjoying a delicious climate and a soil of extraor- 
 dinary fertility, the people are indolent both in body and 
 mind. The cocoa-tree is a generous nurse of sloth ; a 
 garden of moderate size planted with this tree supplies 
 most of the necessaries of life, furnishing food, drink, 
 oil, shelter, fuel, and wood for building. 
 
 There is a tradition, which is said to be derived from 
 the sacred books of the Cingalese, that from the West 
 there shall come to Ceylon a new religion, which shall be 
 adopted by all mankind. Of this notion the Christian 
 missionaries might long since have availed themselves in 
 preaching the doctrine of Jesus ; hut that point they seem 
 to have entirely overlooked. 
 
 The /irst European conquerors of Ceylon, the Portu- 
 guese, converted, in Muhamed's manner, with the sword. 
 The words of the priests who offered baptism, cross, rosa- 
 ry, and all tiie pomp of the Roman Catholic worship, were 
 enforced by the thunder of cannon directed against the 
 temples of the ancient gods. Many of the terror-stricken 
 Cingalese embraced the Catholic religion, without know- 
 ing any thing of the faith which Christ had revealed. 
 
 When the Dutch, in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 
CEYLON. Ill 
 
 dentury, made themselves masters of this extensive island, 
 they built many churches and schools. Their ministers 
 insisted less on the observance of empty ceremonies than 
 holiness of life ; but those who came after them were fre- 
 quently destitute of the noble spirit which actuated their 
 predecessors. Many of them, addicted to drunkenness,- 
 lust, or other vices, set bad examples to the Cingalese. 
 Thousands of the latter nevertheless solicited baptism, be- 
 cause, by virtue of a law, none but baptized Christians 
 could hold public situations. It was to these posts that 
 the Cingalese aspired, much more than to the acquisition 
 of a Christian spirit and sentiments. The image of Buddha 
 was secretly preserved in their hearts and in their habita- 
 tions. 
 
 The Dutch were at length dispossessed by the English, 
 but they did still less to enlighten the minds of the Cinga- 
 lese than their predecessors. The diamonds, pearls, tin, 
 and gold of Ceylon were of more importance to its new 
 masters than any other consideration. Thus the good 
 effected at an earlier period sank back into the slough of 
 ancient paganism. 
 
 In the time of the Dutch there were still between three 
 and four hundred idol temples in Ceylon ; in 1807, they 
 had increased to more than twelve hundred. I/, the yeai 
 1663, there were sixty-five thousand Christians in the dis- 
 trict of Jaffna, which in 1814 contained scarcely five thou- 
 sand. It is evident, therefore, that great numbers of the 
 baptized natives must have returned to the paganism ol 
 their ancestors, which they had not renounced from con- 
 viction. According to a recent calculation, the total 
 number of Protestant natives amounts to about one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand, and that of the Roman Catholic 
 to about fifty thousand : but how many of these Catholics 
 and Protestants are Christians we know not. 
 
 The pagan Cingalese are brutal in their appetites, faith- 
 less, violent, and superstitious in the extreme. — A piece 
 of thread tied round the arm is their preservation from 
 disease, or a ring of iron their protection from evil spirits, 
 who, they suppose, have a peculiar dread of that metal. 
 Others have a small brass tube, containing some sort of 
 medicine, fastened in a band round the waist, and this thev 
 
12 SURVEY OF CJIHISTIANITV. 
 
 expect to act as a spell and to remove the most obstinate 
 malady. Their whole religion embraces but two objects — 
 deliverance from temporal evils and security of temporal 
 prosperity. To ensure deliverance they have recourse to 
 the means already mentioned — to obtain security they 
 make vows and oblations. Thus, previous to the time of 
 harvest, while the paddy or rice crop is in blossom, they 
 form long bands with the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, and 
 with these they surround a portion of the field. In the 
 centre of this circle, a lamp, filled with the expressed oil of 
 a single cocoa-nut, is set up. This is lighted at night and 
 an assurance given to persons called cappoowah that, 
 when the crop is gathered in, a portion shall be given 
 away in the name of the god of Kattnagamme ; trusting 
 that in consequence of this vow they shall be effectually 
 preserved from blight and mildew. Should this, however, 
 not be the case, the priest has always an excuse ready, and 
 pretends that there was some mistake in the performance 
 of the ceremony After the gathering of the harvest, the 
 friends of the person are invited, nee is distributed among 
 the guests, and an oblation of money presented to the 
 cappoowah. This ceremony always takes place by night, 
 the darkness serving not only to cloak the gross imposi- 
 tion, but to add solemnity and awe to the proceedings. . 
 When a person erects a new dwelling, before he will ven- 
 ture to reside in it, he calls the people together and holds 
 a dance to propitiate the evil spirits ; for without this he 
 would live in continual dread of lightning, fire, or earth- 
 quake. 
 
 Most of the Portuguese, or Catholics, are not behind 
 the pagan Cingalese in depravity, and the majority of the 
 Protestants but little better. Such is the result of the con- 
 current testimony of the later travellers. 
 
 In 1815 the English reduced the territories of the King 
 of Candi, the only prince in the island who had till then 
 maintained his independence. Thus the whole of Ceylon 
 became British property. Since that time a new zeal for 
 the melioration of the moral and religious state of its in- 
 habitants has been kindled. To this laudable object Sir 
 Alexander Johnston, when Chief Justice and first member 
 of his majesty's council of Ceylon, essentially contributed. 
 
CEYLON. 113 
 
 Among other measures adopted by him for raising the po~ 
 litical, moral, and intellectual character of the inhabitants 
 of the island, he obtained from the Crown a charter ex- 
 tending the right of sitting upon juries to all the natives of 
 the country ; a privilege possessed by no other natives in 
 Asia ; and in return for this boon he urged them to adopt 
 some measure for the gradual abolition of domestic slavery. 
 In consequence of his suggestion and the anxiety of the 
 people to prove themselves worthy of the privilege granted 
 to them, the proprietors of slaves resolved, that all children" 
 born of their slaves after the 12th of August, 1 8 1 G, should 
 be free ; and thus an end was put to the state of domestic 
 slavery, which had prevailed in Ceylon for three centuries. 
 The day fixed upon, as the comme.icement of the era of 
 liberty, by that philanthropic magistrate, whose example 
 deserves to be held up as a model to the officers of every 
 government, was the birth-day of the Prince Regent (now 
 king) of Great Britain, in order that the slaves might as- 
 sociate the more indissolubly the idea ot the freedom of 
 their descendants with reverence for the Crown under the 
 protection of which that blessing was received. 
 
 The first efforts for the religious instruction of the Cinga- 
 lese were made, as in other cases, by the Missionary Soci- 
 eties in London, and the government availed itself of their 
 ardent desire to do good. Nearly two hundred schools 
 are already established, and their number is every year in- 
 creasing. An academy founded at Colombo for the study 
 of the higher sciences is in a flourishing condition. The 
 missionary stations in all parts of the island are multiplied, 
 and there is no want but of the requisite number of labour- 
 ers qualified to prosecute the sacred work. At Colombo, 
 Galle, and other places, the Methodists have established 
 schools, and the Missionary Society has stations at Candi. 
 Badagamme, on the river Gmdra, and Nellore. In the 
 town of JafTnapatam, at Batticotta, at Trincomale, and at 
 Candi itself, the capital of the lately conquered kingdom, 
 the English missionaries have settlements whence they 
 make excursions in the neighbouring country, preaching 
 or restoring the congregations founded by the Dutch, and 
 afterwards neglected by the British, the ministers of which 
 have been long dead, and which have in consequence re- 
 10* 
 
114 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lapsed into incredible ignorance. Their labours have not 
 been wholly fruitless, and they have had the satisfaction to 
 see priests of Buddha themselves, and among these one of 
 the most learned and Celebrated in the island, embracing 
 Christianity. 
 
 The American Board of Missions also has several sta- 
 tions in the vicinity of Jaffnapatam. The missionaries 
 have under their care sixty tree-schools, with between two 
 and three thousand scholars of both sexes ; and they arc 
 preparing to found a college at Batticotta for the instruc- 
 tion of native youth in the higher branches of learning. 
 
 The same activity at present prevails among the Britisli 
 missionaries in the extensive island of Java, especially since 
 the English gained a footing upon it during their wars 
 with Napoleon. After the Dutch had, at the commence- 
 ment of the seventeenth century, made themselves masters . 
 of some of the coasts of this larjje, mountainous, and fertile 
 island, they took laudable measures for the propagation of 
 Christianity and the moral improvement of their pagan 
 neighbours. In all the towns and villages where they had 
 settlements, there were excellent ministers and zealous 
 champions of the word of God ; but the violent political 
 convulsions, the destructive effects of which extended 
 across the ocean to the mountains of Java, overthrew 
 many praiseworthy institutions. The French were intent 
 only on the military occupation of the productive island. 
 A grand monument of their prodigious activity is left in 
 the magnificent road from Cape Diamond, near the town 
 of Bantam, to the easternmost point of the island, which 
 the French governor, General Daendels, completed in 
 the short space of nine months, levelling hills, filling val 
 leys, and perforating mountains. 
 
 The Muhamedan is the religion that still preponderate^ 
 in Java. Every village has its mosque and its priest, who 
 is at the same time a member of the civil magistracy. 
 Near the town of Cheribon is still shown the tomb of the 
 first Musulman who preached the doctrine of the Koran 
 in Java. So sacred is it accounted that none but rajahs 
 or princes arc permitted to approach it. When the reli- 
 gion of Muhamed gained the ascendancy in Java, the 
 tlindoos fled to the island of Bali ; but many vestiges oi 
 
JAV.\ . 1 1 V 
 
 those people are stil! to ho seen at Solo, a town situated 
 in a delightful and richly cultivated plain, as well as at 
 Samarang and Sourabaya. 
 
 The population of Java was estimated, in 18 15, at little 
 short of four millions and a half, of whom upwards of 
 eighty thousand were Chinese, and a large proportion 
 Malays. The former, however, are by far the most en- 
 lightened and intelligent, though they spring from the 
 lowest classes of the inhabitants of China. Out of four 
 Chinese you are sure to find one who can read, which is 
 more than can be said at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century of the lower orders in all parts of polished Europe. 
 In their principal settlements, and even in the villages, 
 they have schools for their children. Hence it is not sur- 
 prising that they should be in better circumstances than 
 most of the Javanese. To this portion of the popula- 
 tion of Batavia, where the Chinese constitute one sixth of 
 the 330,000 inhabitants, the labours of the London So- 
 ciety's missionary there seem to be largely directed. He 
 is represented as being actively engaged in preparing and 
 circulating Chinese tracts, and among the rest a monthly 
 "Chinese Magazine," of which three thousand copies are 
 printed. 
 
 Unlike the Chinese, the Muhamedans, their priests not 
 excepted, are ignorant ; they are but superficially ac- 
 quainted with the Koran itself. Their religion is become 
 a mere unmeaning routine. The more captivating, one 
 would suppose, must be a doc-trine capable of engaging 
 their minds with the most sublime truths, and filling their 
 hearts with the noblest sentiments. 
 
 It is essentially necessary, however, that sensible and 
 enlightened men be selected for the apostolic office, espe- 
 cially among the shrewd and reflecting Chinese. It was 
 an admirable idea of one of those Chinese in Java, when 
 he said to an English missionary ; " I really believe that 
 all the religions in the world are alike ; of rather that 
 they are only different scions from one and the same 
 radical truth." The missionary misconceived his meaning 
 and returned an inapposite answer. Hence probably it 
 happened that the Chinese, on being exhorted by the Eu- 
 ropean only to pray diligently to Jesus, ironically replied 
 
fib SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 'lam afraid he does not understand Chinese enough 
 and so I must learn English first for that." 
 
 Upon the whole, the British missionaries are not so 
 much deficient in good-will as in the requisite knowledge 
 of mankind, talent, and intelligence. It is frequently the 
 case that, probably lor want of better subjects, ignorant 
 persons, artisans, are selected for missionaries, who, in 
 their pious enthusiasm, offer themselves for the arduous 
 and dangerous undertaking, and complacently console 
 themselves with the idea that the Lord is mighty in the 
 weak. Hence less is accomplished with a great expense 
 of labour and money than might reasonably be desired. 
 Still the good that is effected by them is entitled to our 
 grateful acknowledgment. 
 
 If most of the nations of the other quarters of the globe 
 are still living in a half brutal state without the blessing 
 of Christianity, the chief part of the blame rests with the 
 indifference of the Christian governments of Europe. 
 Nay, many of them and their governors and inferior 
 officers deem it more conducive to the commercial or 
 political advantage of their respective countries, to prevent 
 the light of religion from shining upon the nations, and to 
 let the most fertile tracts lie desolate and uncultivated. 
 
 Hence, numerous islands of Asia have been much more 
 neglected than Java. The rich and extensive Sumatra, 
 1050 miles long by 165 average breadth, is peopled on 
 the coasts by Muhamedans and in the interior by pagans 
 only. The total number of its population is estimated at 
 three millions of souls. Both the English and the Dutch, to 
 whom it was transferred in 1825 by the former, have here 
 concerned themselves exclusively about their commerce. 
 How dependent soever the native primes may be on them, 
 they never bestow a thought on the means of humanizing 
 them by degrees. In the interior of Sumatra not only are 
 human victims offered to idols, but prisoners of war arc 
 put to death with excruciating torments, and eaten with c 
 peculiar kind of broth prepared expressly for the purpose. 
 
 British missionaries, however, were settled in this ne- 
 glected island previously to its restoration to the Dutch ; 
 schools were established by them, education was extended 
 with considerable success, and the way was opened for 
 
SUMATRA BANCA BOKNEO. 1 1 7 
 
 <Jie reception of the sacred volume on the coast of Su- 
 matra A version of the Scriptures in the Batta language 
 is preparing by one of the missionaries, and will be 
 adopted by the Netherlands Bible Society ; while the low 
 Malay translation, upon which another of these labourers 
 is engaged, will probably be transferred to Singapore ; 
 the above-mentioned Society not being in a situation to 
 undertake both. A third, a member of the Baptist 
 mission, who was compelled by civil commotions among 
 the natives to quit his station, had begun the compilation of 
 an English, Malay, and Batta Dictionary, after having 
 completed a translation of the Gospel of St. John The 
 Netherlands Missionary Society also has directed its 
 attention to Sumatra, and sent out missionaries to prose- 
 cute the good work commenced by their British prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 The island of Banca, celebrated for its tin mines and 
 situated near Sumatra, lies desolate, notwithstanding the 
 fertility of its soil. It is valued solely on accouut of its 
 tin, the mines of which are wrought by emigrants from 
 China. The Dutch and English have hitherto purposely 
 prevented the instruction of the people and the culture of 
 the soil, to keep the inhabitants of Banca dependent for 
 their provisions on Java or the commercial town of Palem- 
 bang. The villages are embosomed in prodigious woods, 
 and Minto, the capital, is a rambling place. The abori- 
 ginal inhabitants, mostly pagans, are either Orang- 
 Gunangs, that is, mountaineers, of Malay extraction, as 
 their language seems to indicate, or Orang-Lauts, or sea- 
 faring people, who reside on the e<ra>t. The Chinese, 
 upwards of four thousand of whom dwell on the island, 
 and the Malays, are foreigners. 
 
 The population of Borneo, the largest of the Asiatic 
 islands, like that of Celebes and Macassar, is on the 
 coasts exclusively devoted to Islamism, and in the interior 
 to paganism. Uere, as in Sumatra, human victims are I 
 still sacrificed by the barbarous inhabitants at weddings 
 and on other occasions, before the faces, as it were, of i 
 the Europeans. No native of the Y\ est has yet come 
 hither for the benevolent purpose of making men ac- 
 quainted with the true God and their eternal destination. 
 
118 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Here the Christians are traders and nothing but tr& 
 ders. 
 
 But I shall not treat of countries to which the voice of 
 a better religion has never penetrated, or I should have to 
 mention many thousands of the yet unnumbered islands 
 of Asia. For this reason I shall confine my remarks to 
 those to which the Gospel has been carried. 
 
 In the Molucca Islands, amounting to about one 
 hundred, the present number of Christian inhabitants is 
 computed at upwards of twenty thousand — a small number 
 compared with the vast multitude who live in a state of 
 moral darkness under the brilliant sun of the Spice 
 Islands. A laudable beginning has, however, been made 
 by the Dutch to enlighten the minds of the natives. In 
 Amboyna and Banda British missionaries have been 
 settled ever since the year 1814 They made it their first 
 care to supply the place of teachers to the long neglected 
 congregations, to which belonged about eighteen thousand 
 Christians, and to procure for them Bibles in their native 
 languages printed at Calcutta. In Amboyna itself a 
 Bibie Society has been formed for the circulation of the 
 sacred Scriptures, which in the year 1815 collected four 
 thousand dollars for that purpose. There are also semina- 
 ries for training up young men as schoolmasters for the 
 neighbouring islands, and as assistants to the missionaries 
 sent out by the Netherlands Missionary Society to Am- 
 boyna, Banda, Bouro, Celebes, Seram, Kaybobo, Ternate, 
 and Timor ; and a printing-press has been established to 
 facilitate their operations. The attention of that Society 
 begins also to be directed to some of these islands which 
 are not subject to the Netherlands government, and to 
 which labourers will probably be despatched as soon as 
 they can be spared. In the island of Gilolo are still to 
 be found traces, though indeed very faint ones, of the 
 religion formerly preached by the Jesuits. The triumph 
 with which the Jesuits proclaimed the conversion of Ynka- 
 Kassel, the king of that island, to Christianity, in 1750, 
 his being baptized by the bishop of Manilla, his assuming 
 the name of Ferdinand, in honour of the King of Spain, 
 his dismissing forty-eight of his wives, his destroying all 
 the pagodas, and building a Christian church, was of 
 short duration. Ynka-Kassel, a crafty and ambitious 
 
nilLIPPlNE ISLANDS. 1 1 9 
 
 prince, had no other view in this farce than to win the 
 confidence of the Spanish viceroy, and to secure his aid 
 for the reduction of the neighbouring islands. Failing in 
 this scheme, he pursued a different course ; and the result 
 was, that the Spaniards made war upon him and took him 
 prisoner. In many other of the Spice Islands attempts at 
 conversion had been made at an earlier period by Catholic 
 missionaries, and often unsuccessfully. In the year 1739, 
 Father -.eo de St. Joseph, missionary in Tidor, was 
 quartered by the natives and his head carried about on a 
 spear. A year later, Father Hippolyt was dragged away 
 by the savages and never more heard of. 
 
 The state of Christianity is more flourishing, to outward 
 appearances at least, in the Manilla or Philippine islands. 
 This is chiefly owing to the efforts that have been made 
 for some centuries past by the great missionary institutions 
 at Rome. So far back as in the year 17 J J. the rich and 
 populous capital, Manilla, containing about ninety thou- 
 sand inhabitants, was erected into the see of an archbishop, 
 who has under him three episcopal diocesses. The mis- 
 sionaries were indefatigable in extending the ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction over the ten thousand islands of the Philippine 
 Archipelago : but they proceeded too precipitately in the 
 work of conversion. They seemed to be more solicitous 
 to swell the number than to enlighten the minds of their 
 proselytes. Thus the Augustine friars boasted, in the 
 year 1734, that they had converted and baptized the 
 whole nation of the Isiuagas. Accounts were afterwards 
 received that the savages had risen, plundered the convents, 
 carried off the sacred utensils, and forced the Christians 
 to betake themselves to the mountains to save their misera- 
 ble lives. 
 
 This insecurity continued in some of the islands down 
 to the nineteenth century. In the mountainous Bagabag, 
 one of the Philippines, there were in 1819 about thirteen 
 hundred converts under the direction of Friars Preachers: 
 but none of them could stir a mile from the fort without 
 running the risk of being surprised and murdered by the 
 savage Scorrotai, who dwell in the interior of the country, 
 and are reported to drink the blood of their enemies and 
 to decorate their huts with their sculls. 
 
$ 20 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It may easily be conceived that the Christianity of mei* 
 so hastily converted must be of a rude stamp, and that, 
 owing to the want of good institutions for the instruction 
 of the people, it must remain so. We cannot be astonish- 
 ed to learn, that in many places where the authority of the 
 Spaniards is feeble, the usages and deities of paganism 
 are retained together with the Christian ceremonies, and 
 that infants born with any deformity are still put to death, 
 as tor instance in the island of Paragaor Palawan. It is 
 well known that of late years iifany ot the inhabitants of the 
 coast have solicited baptism, merciy to secure Spanish pro- 
 tection against the at lacks oj the black mountaineers, or to 
 obtain a license to drink wine and eat pork, which the rigour 
 of the Koran prohibits. For the rest, even in places where 
 Christianity has become universal, religion seems to be but 
 a sort of ecclesiastical police transferred to civil life, 
 
 Depages, who, in his voyage round the world, towards 
 the conclusion of the eighteenth century, resided a con- 
 siderable time in Samar, the easternmost of the Philip- 
 pines, draws an animated picture of the state of Christianity 
 there, and of the relation in which the clergy stand to 
 the people. These, says he, who converted the inhabitants 
 and made them subject to the Spanish crown, exercise 
 almost unlimited authority over them. They punish the 
 slightest fault with stripes, and it is not uncommon for 
 priests to apply the rod to the bare bodies of females, 
 married and single. The offenders — so completely are 
 the minds of the Indians under the control of their 
 spiritual guides — meekly submit to these chastisements ; 
 convinced of their justice, they thank the Father lor them 
 and rarely fall again into the same fault. These punish- 
 ments are inflicted publicly, and are not disgraceful, 
 because each knows that perhaps the very next day they 
 may be his portion. All are alike subject to them — old 
 men and young, women, girls, children, without distinc- 
 tion of rank, age, or sex. In confession the priest is 
 made acquainted with every thing. The Indian frankly 
 reveals to him his most secret thoughts. Thus the priest 
 becomes his adviser. He punishes, but sometimes too he 
 rewards with medicines, wine, brandy, and meat He is the 
 general father, overseer, and judge of his flock, and the 
 
JAVA. 
 
 "eader in war, by sea and by land. The priest is at the same 
 imethe governor of the fort of his parish ; he provides i 
 with ammunition, appoints officers, sends out detachments, 
 equips vessels for war, and frequently takes the command 
 of the troops in person. Divine service is performed twice 
 a week, besides festivals, with due solemnity, and accompa- 
 nied with pleasing music, but quite in the Spanish style. 
 On high festivals, the colours of the Blessed Virgin, St. 
 fgnatius, St. Francis, and other saints, are hoisted on the 
 turrets of the fort, and saluted at sunrise and sunset with 
 discharges of artillery. 
 
 The total number of Christians in the Philippines, corn- 
 puted in 1317 in 1,800,000, are divided into between four 
 and five thousand parishes. The Dominican friars alone 
 supply fifty-nine of these parishes and many other 
 missions, in which in the year 1818 there were 153,254 
 souls. A great want of persons qualified to preach the 
 Gospel is felt here, and for this reason the Dominicans in 
 Spain are continually exhorted to repair hither to assist in 
 the good work. The secular clergy in the Philippines arc 
 Indians and Me3tizes, the monks alone Europeans. The 
 bishops are, therefore, necessitated to confer ordination or. 
 people of all professions, who cannot earn a subsistence in 
 -\ny other way. 
 
 CHAPTER Xf. 
 
 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SLOW PROGRESS OF 
 CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA. 
 
 When I once more cast a look back at Asia — the finest 
 and the richest portion of the globe, in comparison with 
 which Europe is a very poor country, with a populatiori 
 inferior by three-fifths — at Asia, the cradle of the most 
 widely diffused religions — I remark with painful surprise 
 its moral and religious degradation. But a very small 
 nortion of its inhabitants profess the Christian faith : an* 
 11 
 
122 SUKVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 but a very small portion of the Christiaas treasure in thew 
 hearts the highest goods of man, the eternal truths revealed 
 through Jesus. That grand idea, the unity of God, is 
 indeed proclaimed by Jews, Muhamedans, and Bramins, 
 by priests of Fo and of the Lamas, of Kaka and Buddha, 
 but disfigured by the wild dreams of barbarians. Regions 
 of immeasurable extent, islands, the multitude of which 
 has never been numbered, lie buried in the darkness of 
 paganism. Man has there but higher natural talents, not 
 higher rights, than the brute. Chicanery and unprincipled 
 power hold the place of law ; despotism and slavery that 
 of social order. What man himself is, such has he made 
 his deity. Is he a brute ? — his idol is a Satan. The altar? 
 of a horrible creed drip with human gore : and that which 
 is never done by ravenous beasts to others of their kind 
 but in the desperation of hunger, is done by men from a 
 religious motive — they devour one another 1 
 
 In every noble mind such scenes have in all ages excited 
 a holy indignation and the thought i This ought not to be.' 
 This indignation springs from the three highest wishes of 
 the spiritual world, which are — more profound knowledge 
 of the Deity, perfection of our nature in an eternal exist- 
 ence, and the union of all mankind into one family around 
 the one God. 
 
 The little progress of Christianity in Asia, in spite 01 
 the labours of the pious heralds who have proclaimed it 
 there, cannot but occasion surprise. Why is its course 
 so tardy ? — Before the period of the migration of the 
 Asiatic nations it was more rapid and mighty. It then 
 penetrated through all the Tartaries to the heart of China. 
 It penetrated to the Indies. Were the preachers of the 
 Gospel in those days possessed of other means than those 
 of our times, who are seconded by money, superior know- 
 ledge and attainments, even succours from the temporal 
 power, and the circulation of the Holy Scriptures in all 
 languages ? — Or have the modern Asiatics less suscepti- 
 ble minds ? are their political institutions more hostile to 
 better notions than they then were ? By no means. Hu- 
 man nature is still the same, and more hostile institutions 
 exist not at this day than those were which Christ and his 
 ttrst disciples had to encounter : and yet the multitude of 
 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ASIA. 123 
 
 •missionaries now employed effect not in a whole genera* 
 tion a hundredth part of what in those times one messenger 
 of the divine master sometimes accomplished in a single 
 day. 
 
 For this reason many have, indeed, believed that Chris- 
 tianity was propagated in the first ages by supernatural 
 means, and that a divine power supported its first preach- 
 ers. But why should God be at this day less with Christ 
 than formerly ? — Assuredly he is as much so now as he 
 was then. 
 
 The truth is. that we no longer possess the Christian 
 religion in the same original purity as the early disciple? 
 of Jesus. Protestants, Catholics, and Greeks preach 
 many things which Christ did not preach ; and because 
 ye do not dispense that which is divine, free from your 
 earthly additions, there is much less of the power of God 
 in what you preach. The earthly is overcome by the 
 power of what is earthly, by the institutions, manners, and 
 prejudices, which ye assail with it. 
 
 In the discourses of Christ, as in all doctrinal precepts, 
 ,ve must distinguish between their spirit and their form, 
 or what he taught, and how he taught, agreeably to the 
 preliminary knowledge and the manners of his age. What 
 he taught was truths which manifest themselves with irre- 
 sistible power, and communicate, as it were, something 
 divine to the minds of mortals : but the manner in which 
 Christ taught was determined by the previous notions of 
 die Jews. On this account he delivered himself in the 
 figurative language of the East. 
 
 Had Christ appeared among the Indians on the Ganges 
 or in China, the spirit of his doctrine would indeed have 
 been the same, but the form would have differed. In thai 
 case he would not have said any thing concerning Mosaic 
 sacrifices, or the words of the prophets, or devils, which 
 were unknown in China and Hindoostan ; but he would 
 have adapted his doctrine to their existing notions and pre- 
 judices. Thus Paul used a different, language in address- 
 ing the more enlightened Greeks at Athens, before the 
 altar of the unknown God, from that which he employed 
 at Jerusalem before the priests of the Mosaic dispensation. 
 Unfortunately, errors of incalculable consequence were 
 
- 1 SURVEY OF CHKISTIANITV. 
 
 committed in the very first ages of Christianity ; for trios** 
 who trod in the footsteps of the earliest apostles adhered, 
 out of pious affection and reverence for their predecessors, 
 to every thing without distinction which originated with 
 ;iiem. Thus the immaterial and accidental were not less 
 dear to them than the essential. They retained the warm 
 imagery of the East in the cooler regions of the West, and 
 preached the Gospel of Christ to heathen in language suit- 
 able for Jews. Hence false notions and misconceptions 
 arose among nations which were strangers to Judaism. 
 These misconceptions produced new definitions ; but the 
 expounders and commentators, mostly belonging to other 
 countries and ages, involuntarily mingled with them their 
 own opinions. The barbarism of the era of the migration 
 of nations likewise contributed its crude ideas, so that the 
 simplest things were rendered complex, the clearest ob- 
 scure, and the spirit was neglected and forgotten amid 
 disputes about forms. Thus, from a medley of Jewish. 
 Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Gothic, and Gallic notions, 
 sprang a system of religion which has strangely enough 
 united the grossest superstition of western paganism with 
 the imagery of the East and the hair-splitting subtleties of 
 the schools. 
 
 With this system the missionaries of our times belong- 
 ing to the different churches journey to the nations of dis- 
 tant parts of the globe. Confirmed in notions current for 
 a thousand years past, they deem what is said concerning 
 Christ and his person more important than what he him- 
 self taught : for they unfortunately believe that what Christ 
 taught, when stripped of what he said with reference to 
 Jewish notions, is too simple, too self-evident, too palpa- 
 ble, to every human understanding. 
 
 Mistaken men ! — to dream that they are wiser than their 
 Divine Master, though he revealed that very doctrine of 
 God, of eternity, and of the destination and duties of man. 
 with greater clearness, connectedness, and completeness, 
 than had ever been done before ; who had made the pro 
 clamation of these very truths to the human race, in order 
 to its melioration and union with God, the business of his 
 ife — to imagine that they are wiser than He, who most 
 strenuously inculcated these very truths, because they were 
 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ASIA, 125 
 
 incumbered or extinguished by religious ceremonies, the 
 speculations of priests, and the legends of Judaism and 
 paganism — truths, to this day obscured by ecclesiastical 
 dogmas, but which every childlike understanding may 
 comprehend, and the infinite depth of which humanVisdom 
 can never fathom — truths by which alone the spirit of man 
 can sanctify and exalt itself, as Jesus Christ was holy and 
 exalted ! 
 
 It is one of the prodigious errors of men in ancient and 
 modern times, to give to the highest that Jesus taught the 
 name of natural religion — as if there could be any other 
 nature besides the divine nature. — But it is this religion 
 which Jesus has revealed. It is the primitive religion : 
 not that it is the most ancient, (for so clearly as it was 
 revealed by Christ it never was revealed before) but it is 
 the stock and root, the essence of all the religions of man- 
 kind. The Chinese in Java had a presumption of this 
 when he said to the Christian missionary : " I verily be- 
 lieve that all the religions in the world are scions of one 
 and the same radical truth !" This radical truth Jesus- 
 drew forth out of darkness. 
 
 When, therefore, missionaries repair to foreign nations 
 not with those primitive truths, but with what men of a 
 later period have conjectured and taught concerning Jesus, 
 they carry to them not divine, but human doctrines. No 
 wonder that they labour to no purpose, or reap but little 
 fruit ; that the wiser pagan smiles contemptuously at the 
 mythology of the Christian church as an ill-invented fable, 
 and the rude idolater finds the traditions of his ancestors 
 more intelligible than the abstruse dogmas of strangers. 
 No wonder that when heathen are induced by earthly 
 means, by persuasions, gifts, hopes, or fears, to be baptized, 
 the new religion does not make them better men. No 
 wonder that the converts as readily exchange again the 
 newly learned practices and doctrines for those to which 
 they were previously accustomed. 
 
 Whether missionaries be sent to the devout Tibctians, 
 or to the wise disciples of Confutse, to the Bramins wedded 
 to their ancient religion, or to the cannibals of Sumatra ; 
 the primitive religion of Jesus, wherever it is preached in 
 its puritv, will strike every being endued with reason by 
 U* 
 
S&G SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 its irresistible truth : for it sheds a light upon all minds, 
 and delightfully solves every enigma of life to the doubting 
 spirits of the more cultivated. But preach not the Gospel 
 to Indians and Tartars as if they were Jews. Therein 
 consisted the wonderful efficacy of the divine word in the 
 first ages, before it became entangled in the net of later 
 dogmatism ; therein the power of the preaching of the 
 apostles, who, though illiterate men, knew more of what 
 was high and holy than the most learned of their times. 
 They imparted convictions which could not be forgotten, 
 but which changed the nature of the person so convinced 
 and made him a new creature. 
 
 If we look at the missionaries as they really are, we 
 soon perceive the reason why their labour has in a great 
 measure proved abortive. Those of the Catholic and 
 Greek church, being frequently more solicitous about out- 
 ward ceremonies than holiness of life, have in their zeal 
 not rarely forgotten that love which they should have 
 inculcated. Instead of setting the consciences of men at 
 liberty, they brought from Europe new restraints upon 
 them. They contented themselves with destroying idols 
 of wood and stone, but knew not how to exterminate 
 those which held possession of the mind. Paul did not 
 overthrow the altar of the unknown God at Athens ; but 
 he enlightened the minds of the idolaters, so that they left 
 their temples to crumble to ruin of themselves. Monks 
 brought the jealousy of their orders with them from Europe 
 to distant parts of the globe, and thereby rendered them- 
 selves a scandal and a scotf to the nations which they 
 attempted to convert. They often sought to enchant the 
 vulgar by religious pomp ; but took no pains to lead their 
 minds into the proper track. 
 
 The Protestant missionaries pursued a contrary course. 
 Clinging not less closely to dogmas which are authorized 
 by symbolical books, and deviating widely from the spirit 
 of their Luther and Zuingli, and still more from that of 
 the Redeemer, they aspired nevertheless to greater sim* 
 plicity in faith, doctrine, and life ; especially the Moravian 
 brethren, the Methodists, and the like. Too frequently, 
 however, has their religious spirit, especially that of the 
 latter, degenerated too much into a transient excitement 
 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ASIA. 127 
 
 of the imagination and feelings. Their missionaries went 
 forth among the heathen with a much stronger love for 
 Jesus than for what is divine, and sought to enkindle in 
 them the like flames of love for the Saviour, and thereby 
 for all that is good and virtuous. 
 
 Far be it from me to censure the course which the} 
 pursued, though it was not adopted by any of the great 
 apostles : there are many ways that conduct to the light, 
 and every one that leads to God is entitled to my reve- 
 rence ; besides, they have individually gained many a 
 soul with which they harmonized. But great effectsupon 
 nations were and are the less to be expected from them : 
 as they have frequently been deficient in the requisite pre 
 paration and in knowledge of the world, or rather in the 
 divine wisdom which Jesus imparted in his instructions to 
 the disciples, by means of which these were enabled to 
 furnish even the most learned of their times with the key 
 to the mystery of the everlasting world of spirits. 
 
 Thus neither Protestants nor Catholics have, by the 
 labour of ages, produced the effects which they intended. 
 To crown the folly, it has moreover happened, that Ca- 
 tholic missionaries have made a merit of attempting the 
 conversion of Protestants ; and vice versa that ProtestantF 
 have exerted themselves to make proselytes from among 
 Christians of the Romish church. 
 
 Be this as it may, there have been among both Catho- 
 lic and Protestant missionaries of every age superior men 
 — men who have lived, and taught, and suffered, with a 
 spirit worthy of the first ages of Christianity. Their hoh 
 labours are still continued. With admiration I contem- 
 plate their fortitude, their discretion, their sacrifice of self, 
 and their success in humanizing savage hordes. Verily 
 not one of your mightiest monarchs, not one of your most 
 renowned heroes, has ever done better service than these 
 men of God havo rendered to mankind. 
 
PART THE THIRD 
 
 AFRICA. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RISE AND DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THIS QUARTER Ol 
 THE GLOBE. 
 
 Tns immense region of wonders, beneath the glowing 
 atmosphere of which all the powero of Nature are- in a 
 higher state of fermentation — Africa — the country of the 
 most gigantic animals and plants, rich in gold, incense, 
 perfumes, and dyeing woods — is little better known at the 
 present day than it was thousands of years since. We 
 are acquainted with scarcely a fifth part of it. Of the in- 
 terior and of its inhabitants we know next to nothing : — 
 and yet this quarter of the globe is not so far distant from 
 Europeans as Asia, and it has had from the remotest ages 
 as close an intercourse with them as the latter. 
 
 Even the north coast of Africa, along the Mediterra- 
 nean Sea, over against Europe, which in the time of 
 ancient Rome was considered rather as a portion of our 
 own than of a different quarter of the world, is now with- 
 drawn from its old connexion. The traitorous policy, or 
 the cowardice, of the European naval powers, has per- 
 mitted those luxuriant coasts, those fertile plains, to be 
 for ages the seat and harbour of unprincipled pirates, 
 whose barbarous pride delights in the humiliation of 
 European princes and the maltreatment of their subjects. 
 Shall the civilization of Europe never be restored there .' 
 Is it so difficult a task to tame those demi-savages, though 
 Home of old subdued the infinitely more powerful rival 
 
AFRICA. 129 
 
 state of Carthage ; and though the rude tribe of Vandals, 
 after exchanging the German shores of the Baltic foi 
 Spain, made themselves masters in a short time of the 
 whole country from Tangier to Tripoli ? Egypt, again, 
 the cradle of ancient wisdom — into what profound degra- 
 dation and barbarism is she not sunk ! 
 
 It is not to be doubted that, in the very same century 
 as the Messiah appeared, disciples of his found their way 
 to Egypt, even though the statement of Eusebius and 
 Jerome, that Mark, the evangelist, was the founder of 
 the congregation at Alexandria, is not to be proved. In 
 the Holy Scriptures themselves, however, we find mention 
 made of the residence of professors of Jesus in the north 
 of Africa, at Cyrene, in Cyprus, Crete, and the islands of 
 the Egean sea.. Pantaenus, the philosopher, was in the 
 second, and the zealous Origen in the third century, the 
 glory of the flourishing Christian church of Alexandria. 
 From that city the faith penetrated into the deserts ol 
 Thebais, the first haunts of Christian monarchism, and 
 through Nubia to Abyssinia, to one of its principal cities, 
 called Axum, where Frumentius, the Egyptian, first 
 preached the gospel of Jesus. 
 
 After Constantine had decreed from the imperial throne 
 that Christianity should be the religion of the Roman 
 world, it became dangerous to remain a heathen. Before 
 his time, indeed, the Cross had been planted along the 
 Mediterranean to beyond the pillars of Hercules, and 
 Carthage had already given celebrated teachers to Chris- 
 tendom : but now Romans and Africans forsook by thou- 
 sands the altars of the deposed deities, and prostrated 
 themselves in adoration before the son of Mary. 
 
 Had not the purity of the Christian faith been previ 
 ously disturbed by human inventions and priestly feuds, it 
 must have been affected by the measures of Constantine 
 and his successors. The millions who betook themselves 
 so suddenly to the Cross to escape persecution, to forward 
 their worldly prospects, or to float with the current, could 
 not exchange their notions and their feelings so speedily 
 as the altar of a pagan for that of a Christian temple. 
 They embraced new usages, not new convictions. The 
 ohurch only had conquered not the religion of Jesus: bill 
 
130 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 priests themselves already began to consider ceremonies 
 as the essentials of faith. 
 
 Hence the converted nations on the coasts of Africa 
 were neither more enlightened nor improved in character ; 
 they continued to be what they had been. Ecclesiastical 
 squabbles afforded fresh food for their passions. When 
 Genseric, king of the Vandals, landed about the middle ot 
 the fifth century with Arian Christian barbarians, reduced 
 Carthage, and founded his piratical state, religion lost as 
 little ground as it gained a century later, when Justinian's 
 general, Belisarius, annihilated the Vandal monarchy, and 
 made the Catholic faith once more triumphant. 
 
 The military fame of Belisarius was not long servicea- 
 ble to the church itself. It was destined, because the Af- 
 rican coast had been subjected to the Byzantine sceptre, to 
 bring ruin upon them in the wars of the eastern powers 
 with their hereditary foes, the Persians. The second 
 Khosru, having vanquished the Greeks, overran Egypt, and 
 reduced Carthage, determined to set up the worship of Or- 
 muzd and the sacred fire instead of the reverence of the 
 Cross. This happened at the same time that Muhamed 
 assumed the prophetic character in Arabia, at the com- 
 mencement of the seventh century. Twenty years later, 
 after Khosru had subdued Africa, Muhamed's Arabs had 
 advanced far beyond^ the ruins of Memphis, on the Nile. 
 The majority of the Egyptian nation, being Jacobite 
 Christians, full of hatred against the Catholics and their 
 emperor at Constantinople, even facilitated the conquest 
 to Amru, the Arabian general. Both the Christian parties 
 drew upon themselves that ruin which, in their blind re- 
 venge, each had prepared for the other. Neither had any 
 alternative, but slavery and death, or the religion of Mu- 
 hamed. Most of them chose the latter, with the same 
 readiness and from the same motives that they had formerly 
 embraced Christianity. Before the expiration of thecen> 
 tury, North Afrie-t was a dependency of Arabia, and the 
 Gospel exterminated by the Koran. In Egypt alone, as 
 also beyond the cataracts of the Nile and the deserts of 
 Nubia, in Abyssinia, the Jacobite Christians maintained 
 their ground, oppressed by the public scorn, along with 
 relics of the Catholic, Greek, and Armenian churches 
 
AFRICA 131 
 
 while the Arabs extended thei. dominion and their faith 
 along the eastern and western coasts of Africa. 
 
 Ever since those days the whole country, from the sandy 
 hills on the left bank of the Nile to Mount Atlas, has been 
 closed against Christianity, and its professors have not trod 
 the soil of North Africa, but as slaves, or travelling traders, or 
 ambassadors from European sovereigns, bringing respectful 
 tribute to the piratical princes. The Christians enjoyed 
 most indulgence, perhaps, in Tripoli, where, though equally 
 despised with the Jews, they are allowed the free exercise 
 of their religion, especially since the family of the Cara- 
 manli ascended the throne. The Pasha Yusuf Caramanli, 
 (since 1 195) the third of that family, has from motives oi 
 policy, and to please the English, treated the Christians 
 with some consideration. The Romish College de Pro- 
 paganda Fide provided the Convent at Tripoli with three 
 monks, mostly Franciscans, for the service of the Chris- 
 tian consuls and their suites. 
 
 At Tunis also toleration is granted, but in a very limited 
 degree. Attempts at conversion are punished with death. 
 In the year 1816 there were in the capital only three Ca- 
 puchins and two Franciscans, and besides these a Greek 
 church with one priest, who likewise officiated for the 
 Protestant consuls and their families. 
 
 In Algiers there are very few Christians, but the Jews 
 are so much the more numerous. In 1816 the number of 
 the latter was computed at nine thousand souls, who had 
 several synagogues. 
 
 The Gospel was not preached in the other parts of 
 Africa till a much later period than on the north coast, 
 After the Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, had in 
 the year 1412 awakened in his nation a spirit of enterprise 
 for the discovery of unknown regions in distant seas ; 
 after Madeira was found, Cape Non doubled, the Senegal 
 seen, the Line passed ; after the Spaniards, and then the 
 Dutch, and lastly the other naval powers of Europe, eager 
 after the gold-dust, ivory, spices, black slaves, and other 
 productions of Africa, had peopled this portion of the 
 globe with their settlements — the word of Christ was pro- 
 claimed also along the shores of the east and west sides of 
 this continent. 
 
132 SUBVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Of the present state of Africa, one of the recent publi- 
 cations of the Wesleyan Missionary Society presents so 
 true and so affecting a picture, that I need not apologise 
 for transferring it to these pages. 
 
 Few parts of the world claim a larger share in the sym- 
 pathy of Christians than Africa : not only do we owe to 
 that portion of our globe a large debt of reparation and 
 kindness for the inexpressible miseries inflicted by the slave- 
 trade on the inhabitants of its western and eastern shores, 
 but the deep moral ignorance in which her sable tribes are 
 in every part involved, renders Africa an especial object of 
 religious charity. The slave-trade excited wars and divi- 
 sions among many of the African nations who had lived 
 comparatively harmless among themselves, and arrested 
 their simple efforts at civilization and improvement : some 
 of them it could not render more cruel than they were : 
 but among these if a hundredth part of that effort had been 
 used to establish a legitimate and civilizing commerce 
 which was put forth to obtain slaves, and had this been ac- 
 companied by endeavours to introduce among them the 
 light of the Christian faith, even these semi-civilized barba- 
 rians, such as the people of the kingdoms of Ashantee, 
 Dahomy, and others, must at this time have presented a 
 different character. It is most melancholy to reflect, that 
 along a great part of the western coast of that continent, 
 and no small part of the eastern too, professed Christians 
 have been known chiefly as exciters of and partakers in 
 the most atrocious deeds — that they have not only kept the 
 Africans back from improvement, but have plunged them 
 into the lowest depths of cruelty and barbarism — and that 
 oven now, when our country is endeavouring to use her 
 power for purposes of mercy to the people of that conti- 
 nent, other European nations are reviving the trade in hu- 
 man beings, extending it in new directions, and counter- 
 acting, as far as may be and with too much efficiency, the 
 endeavours making to extend knowledge and religion in 
 Africa. This activity of the wicked in doing mischief and 
 inflicting misery, under the influence of the lust of gain, 
 ought only to stimulate the activity of benevolence and 
 veligious charity. 
 
 Independently, however, of all the evils which have been 
 
AFRICA, 133 
 
 the result of this violence and aggression of nations pro 
 fessing to be Christians, Africa presents a moral scene of 
 the most affecting kind. To the North it is involved in 
 Muhamedan darkness, delusion, and vice : in the South 
 the people are sunk almost below paganism itself, having 
 scarcely any form of religion or intellectual activity — 
 wretched, sordid, and degraded to the level of beasts : 
 high up the East coast they are in a state of equal degra- 
 dation, but with more ferocity : in some parts of the West 
 and tending to the interior, there are several half-civilized 
 kingdoms, whose superstitions are not only gross but hi- 
 deously cruel : of the central nations we as yet know little, 
 of many nothing ; but there is no hope that any of them 
 are in a state much above the rest. Yet Africa contains 
 millions of immortal souls ; yet Africa has, both in former 
 times and in our own days, witnessed the glorious and hal- 
 lowing triumphs of the Gospel ; and over all her sun- 
 burnt plains and in her trackless forests shall her children 
 ultimately stretch out their hands unto God ! 
 
 This is, indeed, an object ofjaith ; for the present state 
 of the Africans is awfully distant from all appearance of 
 such an event considered generally. The habits of the 
 Caffres and Hottentots are well known, those of the half 
 civilized western nations not so much so ; but they furnish 
 a most impressive proof that in many circumstances, every 
 approach to civilization, while paganism and superstition 
 remain, only serves to increase human crime and misery. 
 They have monarchical government, an order of nobility 
 merchants, and agriculturists ; they have chief cities, town?, 
 and villages ; but they are at once the slaves of the most 
 absolute^and most diabolical despotism and of the most san- 
 guinary superstition. For the slightest offence the life of 
 man is taken away : at every funeral the blood of the com- 
 mon people is used to moisten the grave ; the number slain 
 for tiiis purpose is proportionate to the rank of the deceased; 
 and sometimes amounts to scores and hundreds of persons ; 
 and this too is repeated every year, so that the waste of hu- 
 man life is incalculable and wholly to be attributed to su- 
 perstition and pride. 
 
 Yet, through the mercy of God, has the work of his 
 grace begun in Africa. In Sierra Leone, on the West 
 12 
 
134 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the spectacle of a peaceful and happy Christian govern- 
 ment is exhibited in delightful contrast with all these hor- 
 rifying scenes— the fruit of superstition and the unchecked 
 vices of the human heart : there no slave exists — no blood 
 is spilt — no oppression lights on the poorest ; the church 
 and the chapel receive the crowded worshippers of the 
 true God, and his praise is heard in their peaceful dwell- 
 ings, the security of which is guarded by an equal law, as 
 powerful for the poor as for the rich, for the black peasant 
 as for his white governor. Southern Africa too now ex- 
 hibits her converted tiibes, and her civilization, carried 
 forward along with the knowledge of Christ and the kind 
 and hallowing influence ®f the Gospel. Let us not then 
 faint nor be discouraged : by the messengers of peace, 
 sent forth into all these dark lands, shall the glorious work 
 be done under the blessing of God, and the cruelties of 
 pagan Africa be numbered only as those of ancient pagan 
 Britain, to call forth the song of praise from all her tribes, 
 and give new evidence to the truth and power of the 
 Gospel ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRESENT CHRISTIAN SECTS IN EGYPT . 
 
 In Egypt small remnants of the Jacobite, Armenian. 
 Greek, and Catholic churches have maintained themselves 
 under numberless indignities and public humiliations till the 
 present day. The Mussulman regards them with con- 
 tempt. When a Christian does not choose to walk through 
 the streets of Cairo, the ass is the only animal that he is 
 permitted to ride. If he meets a grandee he is obliged to 
 dismount, till the latter has passed ; and he must pay the 
 the same mark of respect whenever he passes the house 
 of the chief Cadi, twenty other courts of justice, and the 
 principal mosques, if he would not expose himself to vio- 
 lence from the populace. Even European ambassadors 
 
EGYPT. 135 
 
 And consuls, perhaps with the exception of the English 
 alone, are forced to submit to this degradation. 
 
 Like the forsaken hermitages and the ruins of ancient 
 convents that crown the bare and rugged rocks of the 
 mountains of Dshebel Mokkattcm on the right bank of 
 the Nile, the Christians still subsist in Egypt, a monument 
 of what has been : just as irreconcileable in their rights 
 and in their doctrines concerning the natures and persons 
 in Christ, and as full of inveterate enmity against each 
 other, as they were a thousand years ago. 
 
 The most numerous of these sects is that of the Jacob- 
 ites or Coptic Christians. With Jacob, the Syrian, who 
 llourished in the sixth century, they admit but one nature 
 in Christ, and believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded from 
 God the Father only, and not from the Son. These 
 Copt's are the gradually dwindling relics of the aboriginal 
 inhabitants of Egypt. Like the ancient Egyptians, they 
 are of a gloomy disposition, obstinate, and religious ; igno- 
 rant, servile, and callous, from the ill treatment which for 
 thousands of years they have experienced from their oft- 
 changed rulers. Their sacred books are still written 1x7 
 the Coptic language ; but this language, though it has 
 long since ceased to be the ancient Lisan Faraoum, or 
 language of the Pharaohs, is now scarcely understood 
 even by the priests themselves. To those religious opi< 
 nions which the eastern emperors of old forced them with 
 sword and dungeon to embrace, they still cling with an 
 inflexibility, which renders them insensible to the scorn ot 
 the Moslems and fills them with abhorrence of the Roman 
 Catholic churches. 
 
 When Amru, at the head of the Arabs, entered Egypt 
 oleven hundred years ago, the number of the Coptic 
 Jacobite bishops still amounted to seventy : it has now 
 dwindled to twelve. Most of these episcopal sees are in 
 Upper Egypt, where, at a greater distance from the head- 
 quarters of their oppressors, they experienced the less mo- 
 lestation. Their patriarch, however, who is styled the 
 Primate of the churches of Nubia and Abyssinia, has his 
 seat at Cairo, where there are twelve Coptic churches- 
 including that at Fostat, also called Mase-el-atik, or Old 
 Cairo. 
 
136 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The Greek Christians possess but two churches in Cairo 
 jne of these is under the bishop of Mount Sinai, the other 
 under the patriarch resident at Alexandria. In the latter 
 city there are also several Jacobite as well as Greek 
 churches. The Armenian and Catholic Christians are 
 least numerous. The former have but one church in the 
 capital of Egypt ; the latter two churches and as many 
 onvents. 
 The Catholics are the most assiduous of these sects in 
 ;he work of conversion. Jesuits, Capuchins, Franciscans, 
 and other friars, are seen incessantly and zealously labour- 
 ing to increase their small congregations. They have the 
 prudence, however,, to abstain from making too direct 
 overtures to the professors of the Koran ; their only tri- 
 umph consists in now and then gaining over a Christian 
 of some other communion to the Romish cmirch. 
 The Pacha regards these proceedings of the European 
 apostles with the utmost indifference, convinced that their 
 conversions will not make better or worse citizens, and 
 well knowing that they often produce quarrels, which fre* 
 quently furnish a pretext for imposing heavy fines on con- 
 verters and converted. The monks of the Romish church 
 have detached convents scattered in the Egyptian towns 
 and even in Upper Egypt, as for instance that of the Fran- 
 ciscans at Achmina. 
 
 Under barbarous rulers, but little illumination can be 
 expected from the most despised portion of the people, to 
 which the Christians belong. I am not alluding here to 
 European settlers, but to those who regard Egypt as their 
 country ; if, however, the place of abode of men possessing 
 neither freedom nor rights may be called their country. 
 They observe with slavish devotion church ceremonies 
 transmitted to them from antiquity ; and they are ignorant 
 and superstitious as their masters. They contemplate 
 with reverence the aged sycamore of Matare, a village 
 near the ruins of Heliopolis, five or six miles from the 
 capital. Tradition relates, that when the holy family on 
 their flight to Egypt were once seeking shelter, this tree 
 opened to afford them a retreat. No good Christian 
 passes without cutting a small piece from the tree, which 
 ^eems nevertheless to flourish in imperishable beautv 
 
ABYSSINIA. 13*5 
 
 With the like devotion the Copts perform pilgrimage to a 
 cavern, which is said to have served for the abode of the 
 holy family ; and the Greeks do the same to a pillar in 
 their church at Fostat, which is at least celebrated for 
 what is rather a rare circumstance — a useful miracle. Any 
 person, namely, who has lost his reason, and is bound to 
 this pillar, is sure to recover it, if certain prayers are mut- 
 tered over him. 
 
 The Coptic congregations dwell far up the country in 
 Upper Egypt, where they possess at Achmina one of the 
 most magnificent churches in the whole province. They 
 extend as far as the falls of the Nile, on the frontiers of 
 Nubia. There, in the town of Dshirdshe, where the mis- 
 sionaries of the Romish communion have also an hospice 
 for the propagation of the faith, is still the seat of a Coptic 
 bishop. The last vestiges of the Christian faith disappear 
 at the commencement of the hot region of Nubia, in the 
 kingdoms of Sennaar, Darfur, Dongala, and Dekin ; and. 
 in those unknown tracts, a savage paganism alone goer 
 ■land in hand with the distorted doctrine of Muhamed. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE JACOBITES IN ABYSSINIA FRUITLESS ATTEMPTS 0* 
 
 THE CATHOLICS TO ESTABLISH MISSIONS. 
 
 It is about sixty days' journey through the deserts of 
 Nubia to Abyssinia or Habesch. This country is an 
 African Switzerland, a labyrinth of valleys, hills, and 
 mountains, watered by springs, rivers, and lakes. Beeches 
 and pines grow at the foot of the lofty mountains, the 
 summits of which sometimes glisten with snow. On the 
 verdant slopes of the hills, carnations, tulips, lilies, and 
 other beautiful flowers, blossom in wild confusion amid 
 the herbage of the meadows. The lion, the tiger, and the" 
 panther roar in the wilderness, and chamois swarm on the 
 12* 
 
-!$& SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 highest peaks of the mountains. The notes of European 
 birds are heard in the woods ; but the cassowary and the 
 ostrich rove through the steppes in the heart of the country. 
 
 The inhabitants of this rich and wonderful mountain-re- 
 gion came over, no doubt, at some very remote period from 
 the neighbouring Arabia, from which they are separated 
 only by the Red Sea. Their figure, their physiognomy, 
 and their lank hair, confirm this conjecture ; but their dark 
 olive complexion seem to denote an intermixture with some 
 nore ancient aboriginal race, unless this colour be the effect 
 of a hot sun upon a long scries of generations. As far as 
 we can learn from their traditions and books, their state suf- 
 fered many revolutions from wars and insurrections, till 
 the sovereignty of the whole country became invested in 
 one family ; for the sacred language in which their reli- 
 gious books, their most ancient documents, are written, is 
 now the language only of the shepherds of the country. 
 It is called the Tigre" language. Tigre is part of the 
 mountain-tract, contiguous to the Red Sea, containing the 
 ancient Axum, with the remains of its former magnifi- 
 cence, among which an obelisk of granite eighty feet high 
 is still standing. There the kings of Habesch are to this 
 day solemnly consecrated. But the language of the 
 sovereign and the grandees is the Amhara, so called from 
 one of the most central provinces of the country. The 
 residence of the Negus or king of Habesch is at Gondar 
 in the province of Dcmbea. 
 
 The Abyssinians are a pastoral people, who barter the 
 productions of their country with foreigners, because they 
 are not yet acquainted with money. Just as they were de- 
 lineated by Mr. Salt in 1810, so they were described by 
 Guerreiro, the Jesuit, in 1G08. "Among them," says 
 he, " we meet with fewer vices than in many countries of 
 Europe, where our holy faith bears, sway. They have 
 great bluntness in conversation, much innocence in their 
 manners, nothing savage, nothing cruel." 
 
 The Portuguese navigators had discovered Habesch so 
 early as in the second half of the fifteenth century. From 
 that time commenced a commercial intercourse, and a 
 closer connection between these Africans and the bold 
 Europeans who succoured them against the predatory. 
 Moors and Bcduins, in the neighbouring country of Adei 
 
ABYSSIMU. 139 
 
 or Zaila. The Portuguese brought with them some of 
 their priests to Habesch. These found there, to their no 
 small astonishment, a Christian nation which had pre- 
 served its faith from time immemorial, though surrounded 
 by Muhamedan and pagan neighbours. The Christianity 
 of Abyssinia, derived from the earliest ages of our era, 
 had, it is true, nothing in common with the doctrines of 
 the West. The Sabbath was observed as well as Sunday, 
 circumcision as well as baptism, and the holy communion 
 together with abstinence from many kinds of food prohi- 
 bited by the law of Moses. A close affinity was dis- 
 covered between its tenets and those of the Jacobite 
 Christians in Egypt. The Abyssinians knew but of one 
 nature in Christ, regardless whether western ecclesiastical 
 councils had condemned this dogma or not. That many 
 teachers of the word of God had formerly come to them 
 from Egypt, was proved by the circumstance that the 
 head of their church, their patriarch, the abuna (our 
 father), who resided in the town of Dobsan, acknowledged 
 himself a suffragan to the Coptic patriarch. 
 
 So much the more intimate now became the connection 
 between the Portuguese and the Abyssinians. King 
 Etana Denghel, who was on the throne in 1525, even sent 
 an ambassador to Lisbon to conclude a treaty of amity, 
 and solicited Father Juan Bermudez, who had come to 
 Habesch in the year 1520 with Alvarez, viceroy of India, 
 to accept the post of abuna or patriarch of Abyssinia, 
 when Mark, the former abuna, was lying on his death- 
 bed. Bermudez cheerfully assumed the office, in which 
 he was confirmed by Pope. Paul III. who unexpectedly 
 found his sacred authority extended into the interior of a 
 quarter of the globe that was scarcely yet discovered. 
 This state of things, however, was of but short duration. 
 The rude zeal of the Portuguese soldiers, to whom the 
 religious rites of the Abyssinians appeared absurd or 
 impious, exasperated the people ; and when, after the 
 decease of the old king, Father Bermudez required his son 
 Claudius to swear allegiance to St. Peter, that is, to the 
 Pope of Rome, the young prince replied : " What care I 
 for him ? I call thee no longer abuna. Thou art a pa- 
 triarch of the strangers, a man that worships four gods. ,; 
 The Father threatened him with excommunication j on 
 
140 SURVilY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 which Claudius exclaimed ; " Thou art thyself excommu 
 nicated l" The king actually invited a new patriarch 
 from Egypt, and Bermudez was obliged to quit Abyssinia. 
 
 The intercourse between Portugal and Habesch was 
 nevertheless kept up. Ignatius Loyola burned with desire 
 to establish, by means of his disciples, a mission in the 
 country. He obtained the approbation of the courts of 
 Rome and Lisbon. In the year 1556, twelve Jesuits 
 travelled to Abyssinia. Their journey, however, was 
 fruitless, for their intemperate and contentious zeal soon 
 rendered them odious alike to prince and people. 
 
 At a later period (1G04) Peter Pays, the Jesuit, was 
 more successful. By his abilities and address he prepos : 
 sessed the court in his favour, while his assistants preached 
 the Roman Catholic doctrine in the country. King 
 Seltam Seghed even went so far as to issue an ordinance, 
 commanding that no one should maintain, upon penalty 
 of death, that there is but one nature in Jesus Christ. 
 This and similar mandates, which threatened the ancient 
 religion of the people, spread discontent over the greatest 
 part of Abyssinia. The king, under the guidance of the 
 Jesuits, had recourse to rigour, which he carried to cruelty. 
 The consequences were insurrections and civil wars, 
 which made the throne totter. Many of the churches 
 built by the Jesuits, which were more like fortresses than 
 temples, were demolished by the people. The king, to 
 preserve his crown, was obliged to grant permission to all 
 to follow the dictates of their consciences. While J (he 
 Jesuits murmured, the professors of the ancient faith sang : 
 " Hallelujah ! for the sheep of Habesch are delivered 
 from the wolves of the West !" 
 
 On the decease of Seltam Seghed, in the year 1632, 
 one of the first public measures of his son, Alan Seghed, 
 was the expulsion of the Jesuits and all the Catholics. 
 Their very name has continued to be an abomination to 
 the people, even to the present day. Some Jesuits, who 
 ventured to stay in Habesch, in expectation of better 
 times, were seized and executed as contemners of the 
 royal commands. Every subsequent attempt to establish 
 missions has been frustrated. Three Franciscans, who 
 i'linc into the countrv at the commencement of thf 
 
ABYSSINIA. 141 
 
 eighteenth century, were executed in 1710. The people, 
 though suspicious of Europeans, whose zeal for making 
 converts is odious to them, are nevertheless mild and 
 courteous to those who interfere not in religious matters. 
 While pagans, Muhamedans, and Jews, are tolerated in 
 Abyssinia, the settlement of western Christians is viewed 
 with a jealous eye. 
 
 The most important circumstance that has recently 
 happened for Abyssinia, is the translation of the Bible 
 into the Amhara language. M. Asselin, charge d'affaires 
 to the French consul-general in Egypt, accidentally met 
 at Cairo with a poor old man, who, having been teacher 
 to Mr. Bruce and Sir William Jones, and being complete- 
 master of Ethiopic literature, assisted him in the execu- 
 tion of the work, which has been printed at the expense 
 of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
 
 The report of the Church Missionary Society for 
 1820-1 states, that Professor Lee had turned much of his 
 attention to the subject of Abyssinia, and that several 
 other members of the University of Cambridge were 
 devoting themselves with his assistance to forward the 
 opening plans in behalf of that country. To prepare 
 Abyssinia for the reception and use of the Scriptures, in 
 both the ecclesiastical and vernacular languages of the 
 country, and to supply editions of them suited to their 
 purposes, are objects worthy of years of toil by the best 
 scholars of our land. 
 
 The British and Foreign Bible Society has availed itself 
 of all the means at its disposal to provide such editions ; 
 and, by the active aid of its learned coadjutors, the Four 
 Gospels in Amharic, procured for the Society by the Rev. 
 Mr. Jewett in Egypt, were printed and forwarded in 1825 
 to Abyssinia. The Ethiopic Scriptures were at the same 
 time in preparation. Two Lutheran clergymen from the 
 seminary at Basle, destined to undertake a journey to Abys- 
 sinia for the purposes of investigation and research, prepa- 
 ratory to the commencement of a mission in that country, 
 proceeded towards the end of the year 1826 to Cairo, the 
 grand resort of North African intercourse, where other 
 missionaries had previously arrived for the purpose of being 
 permanently stationed there, The former met in Egypt, 
 
142 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with Girgis, an intelligent and well-disposed native ol 
 Abyssinia, who had been sent by the king to procure an 
 abuna, or bishop, from the Armenian patriarch, the former 
 abuna having been expelled for intemperance. With this 
 person the missionaries visited Palestine and Syria, and, 
 after an intercourse of many months had confirmed their 
 mutual regard, they found, on their return to Cairo, an 
 Englishman, named Coffin, become by long residence an 
 Abyssinian in sentiment and habits, deputed by the ras of 
 Tigre, who is in a state of discord with the king, and had 
 at first received the expelled abuna, but had now sent to 
 the Coptic patriarch for another abuna. The ras further 
 solicits the interference of the English to fortify Amphila, 
 on the coast of his province, as a place of trade, and asks 
 for mechanics and artisans, and especially a physician. 
 
 Mr. Coffin was the bearer of a letter to the British go- 
 vernment containing these bequests, and had directions to 
 proceed to England, if practicable, to deliver it. The 
 missionaries justly consider this combination of circum- 
 stances as extraordinary ; and though one of them, on 
 account of his knowledge of medicine, may probably be 
 detained by the ras at Tigre, he purposes to make it a 
 condition of taking up his residence there, that he shall 
 be allowed to accompany his colleague in visiting all parts 
 of Abvssinia. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EAST COAST OF AFRICA MADAGASCAR ISLE OF 
 
 MOURliON. 
 
 From the mountains of Abyssinia, for a range of some 
 ihousands of miles along the east coast of Africa to the 
 Cape territory, consisting of regions hot, moist, fertile, but 
 insalubrious for Europeans, reigns paganism, or the reli- 
 gion of Muhamed, or a mixture of-both. The Portuguesf 
 
EAST COAST OF AFRICA. 141> 
 
 still possess here some settlements, relics of the days of 
 their glory, at Mozambique, Monomotapa, Quiloa, and 
 Sofala. At Mozambique, a small insular town, and the 
 chief station of the Portuguese, there are two convents 
 and as many churches. The place is also the seat of a 
 bishop. For centuries but little has been done for the 
 propagation of Christianity, and that little without success. 
 Missionareis were frequently wanting, and, where pro- 
 mising beginnings were made, all soon relapsed into its 
 former barbarism. In Monomotapa the Jesuits were long 
 actively engaged : but it is doubtful whether the apparent 
 disposition of the people for Christianity was so much the 
 result of instruction as of fear of the Portuguese, whose 
 protection or military aid was of greater consequence to 
 the natives than their religion. 
 
 All the attempts made to convert the formidable natives 
 of the extensive island of Madagascar, about 800 miles by 
 200, proved till lately still more unsuccessful. Its popu- 
 lation, computed at four millions of souls, who combine 
 the most deplorable inventions of paganism and the rudest 
 notions of virtue with the belief in an only Supreme Being, 
 continued to be sworn enemies to the Europeans. They 
 were but too well acquainted with these Europeans, who 
 come to annihilate the independence of nations and to 
 make themselves masters of the natural wealth of their 
 countries. So recently as the year 1815, the British set- 
 tlement formed there was razed to the ground, and every 
 European inhabitant of it massacred without mercy. 
 
 I shall say nothing of the earlier efforts of individual 
 missionaries, among whom the French were particularly 
 active, because they were productive of no benefit in 
 Madagascar. 
 
 Prospects more pleasing to the benevolent mind have 
 since opened in this island. In 1821 a treaty was conclu- 
 ded between the British governor of the Isle of France, and 
 Radama, King of Madagascar, for the extinction of the 
 slave-trade among his subjects. According to a stipula- 
 tion of this treaty ten Madagascar youths were sent to the 
 Mauritius and ten to England, to be instructed in useful 
 arts with a view to promote civilization in their own coun- 
 try. Missionaries had previously been received at Tanann 
 
144 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 rivoo, the capital of King Radama, who had even placed 
 under their care for education sixteen native children, three 
 of whom were sons of his own sister, one of them heir-ap- 
 earentto the crown, and the rest of the children of differ- 
 ent nobles. Other schools were established, and the mis- 
 sionaries applied themselves assiduously to the study of the 
 language of the island. Missionary artisans were sent 
 out, preparations were made for the erection of cotton and 
 silk-works, and it was even in contemplation to introduce 
 the mulberry-tree into Madagascar. 
 
 Still more recent accounts assure us that prejudice is 
 gradually giving way among the natives, and to this end 
 the example and decisive measures of King Radama pow- 
 erfully conduce. He has abolished infanticide and some 
 other inhuman and superstitious customs, and enacted 
 laws tending to the encouragement of industry and civil- 
 ization. By a late treaty with the chiefs of an extensive 
 portion of the island, inhabited by people called Sacalaves, 
 he is become the ruler of at least two-thirds of Madagas- 
 car : and, considering the enlightened and liberal charac- 
 ter of this sovereign, that event cannot but be regarded as 
 auspicious to the extension both of Christianity and civil- 
 ization. 
 
 Some of the youths educated in England, under the care 
 of the London Missionary Society, have returned to their 
 own country to communicate to others the useful know- 
 ledge which they have here acquired. 
 
 The number of native children of both sexes under in- 
 struction in the twenty-nine schools established by the 
 missionaries in the environs of the capital, exceeds two 
 thousand ; and some of those edusated at the central school 
 or Royal College, at Tananarivoo, are at present usefully 
 engaged as superintendents of schools in the country. In 
 that institution there are now about one hundred and sixty 
 boys ; and the king has signified his pleasure that twelve 
 of the most promising of them shall receive instruction in 
 Greek and Latin. A public examination is annually held 
 at the capital, on which occasions the king usually pre- 
 sides ; and he enters with great interest into all the details 
 of the meeting. A Society in aid of the schools has been 
 established at Tananarivoo. with the sanction of the king. 
 
MADAGASCAR— ISLE OF BOURBON. 145 
 
 and is denominated The Madagascar Missionary Schoo; 
 Society. From the latest reports it appears that the mis- 
 sionaries are zealously exerting themselves to introduct 
 the knowledge of letters among the numerous population 
 of this extensive island, chiefly with a view to render the 
 natives capable of reading the Scriptures. A translation 
 of the New Testament into their language has been com- 
 pleted ; the missionaries are proceeding with the books of 
 the Old Testament : and a printing-press, with the requi- 
 site appendages, has been sent out to this station. 
 
 From among the youths trained in the Royal College 
 eighteen have lately been selected for military service by 
 command of the king, who, finding his endeavours for the 
 government of the country cramped and sometimes para- 
 lyzed, for want of agents capable of communicating with 
 him in writing, is now convinced of the necessity of using 
 all means in his power for promoting the instruction of his 
 people — a measure which can scarcely fail to conduce to 
 the diffusion of useful knowledge, civilization, and Chris 
 Tianity. 
 
 In the other smaller islands off the east coast of Africa, 
 such as the Isle of Bourbon and the Isle of France, Chris 
 tianity is pretty general among the scanty population. 
 Slaves themselves receive some Jittle religious instruction* 
 In all the other islands of this ocean, for instance in the 
 Comorra islands, on the coast of Zanguebar, the peo- 
 ple, mostly subject to Muhamedan conquerors, are stil ' 
 heathen. 
 
 13 
 
146 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ''APE OF GOOD HOPE — PROTESTANT MISSIONS FOR TH* 
 CONVERSION OF THE HOTTENTOTS, CAFFRES, &-C. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hope forms the southernmost poinf 
 of the African continent. The Dutch, under Jan van 
 Ilibek, conquered and took possession of it in 1653. In 
 Table Bay they erected and fortified Cape Town, a place 
 which, from its situation, must be of importance to Euro- 
 peans while the maritime commerce of the East Indies 
 continues to be so. 
 
 The Dutch were for a long period merely Dutch, that is. 
 merchants. To humanize men was one of the last pursuits 
 in which they would have thought of engaging. About 
 the religious instruction of their own slaves they concerned 
 themselves but little. There were scarcely any schools at 
 Cape Town, and those which did exist were in a wretched 
 state. Good families sent their children to Europe for 
 education. The Calvinists, who possess most influence at 
 Cape Town, long denied their Lutheran fellow Christians 
 the privilege of having a church ; it was not till 1779 that 
 the latter, after surmounting numerous obstacles, were al- 
 lowed the public exercise of their religion : and it was not 
 before the conclusion of the eighteenth century that, in 
 Holland itself, the propagation of a better faith among the 
 heathen in the Dutch colonies began to be seriously 
 thought of. Still less was done towards this end at Cape 
 Town and among the neighbouring savages than in the 
 other Batavian settlements. 
 
 With the reduction of Cape Town by the English, du- 
 ring the war of the French revolution (in 1795), com- 
 menced a new era for the heathen of southern Africa. 
 The London Missionary Society, the United Brethren, 
 and the Wesleyan Methodists, entered with laudable emu- 
 lation upon their labours in the sacred cause. 
 
 The nearest neighbours to Cape Town are the Hotten- 
 tots, a poor slothful tribe, possessing few ideas, who dwell 
 
CAPE OF GOOD HOP I. 141 
 
 hi scattered kraals or villages, rear cattle and sheep, pa) 
 scarcely any attention to agriculture, and have acquired 
 but little taste for civilization from their proximity for two 
 centuries past to Europeans. The people of more remote 
 regions lead a wandering life, as they have done for thou- 
 sands of years. 
 
 So early as 1736, the Moravian Brethren, in their zeal 
 for the conversion of the natives, had begun to collect a 
 little congregation of Christian Hottentots at Gnadenthal. 
 George Schmidt, a pious German, was their first apostle, 
 Gnadenthal is situated in a narrow fertile valley, about 
 135 miles east by north from Cape Town. The Dutch 
 East India Company, however, in their mercantile policy- 
 disapproved the undertaking, and even deemed it danger- 
 ous to the interests of the colony. They accordingly 
 prohibited the propagation of Christianity, and prevented 
 it till the year 1792. Not till then did they yield to the 
 repeated solicitations of the Brethren, and grant them 
 permission to send over missionaries again. George 
 Schmidt had taughtta few Hottentots to read, and left them 
 a Dutch Bible ; and this little had been sufficient to keep 
 the spark of Christianity alive among them. The con- 
 gregation has since increased from year to year, and six 
 missionaries soon found abundant employment in teaching 
 and diffusing European civilization. In 1816 there were 
 at Gnadenthal two hundred and forty-four houses, inha 
 bited by twelve hundred and seventy- six persons ; but, 
 owing to the removal of several families to the new settle- 
 ment of Elim, their number was reduced in 1825 to twelve 
 hundred. 
 
 The appearance of this Hottentot town, with its church. 
 its school, and its busy artisans, induced the British go- 
 vernor, the Earl of Caledon, in 1808, to grant the Mora- 
 vians a site for a new mission, about forty miles north- 
 ward of Cape Town, on the coast. This is Gronekloof 
 (Greendale). Here resided from sixty to seventy Hot- 
 tentots in twelve huts. The missionaries immediately 
 fell to work, erected a school, taught the operations of 
 agriculture and gardening, burned down the neighbouring 
 woods, which were the haunt of tigers, and the whole 
 country soon assumed a different aspect under their hands. 
 
141 SURVEY OF CHRISTIA2HT\ • 
 
 So early as 1813, forty-four Christian families dwelt then 
 together in neat habitations, ami in 1827 the place had 
 Jive hundred and eighteen inhabitants. At another mis- 
 sion to which, in honour of Lord Caledon, his name wa> 
 given, about one hundred and thirty miles eastward from 
 Cape Town, six hundred Hottentots were settled in 1816. 
 Though circumstances caused the relinquishment of this 
 station in 180C. it was re-established m 1821. with the 
 'Oncurrence of the government. 
 
 The United Brethren have also settlements atllemel in 
 
 Varde. near Caledon. at Elim, near Cape Aiguilles, and 
 at Enon, on the Witte River, near Algoa Bay. On the 
 
 nvitation of the colonial government, they are preparing 
 to extend their labours beyond the borders of the colony, 
 by adding a sixth settlement among the Tambookies to 
 the five enumerated above. It appears that these people, 
 who, under their chieftain, Powana, possess an exten- 
 sive and fertile tract of country bordering on the district of 
 Somerset, having, like other tribes, suffered from the 
 inroads of the Mantatees, applied to the colonial govern- 
 ment for protection: but this could not be afforded beyond 
 :lie bounds of the colony, ami they were unwilling to 
 remove within its territory and to leave their fine country 
 a prey to others. After the defeat of the Mantatees. 
 Powana begged the colonial government to use its influ- 
 ence for the establishment vC a missionary institution 
 among his people : and government proposed the mea- 
 sure to the Brethren, who, after visiting the Tambookit 
 chief, acceded to the application. 
 
 The London Missionary Society also has establishments 
 
 \t Bethelsdorp. founded in 180C, about four hundred and 
 fiftj miles eastward of Gape Town, near Algoa Bay. 
 where twelve hundred Hottentots are engaged in agricul- 
 ture, rearing cattle, and various trades ; at Tlieopolis. 
 sixty miles north-east of Bethelsdorp ; at Pacaltsdorp. 
 two hundred and forty-live miles east of the Cape; at 
 TIankey, a new station, named after the Treasurer of the 
 Society, near the Chamtoos River, between Bethelsdorp 
 and Pacaltsdorp ; ami at Paarl, Tulbagh, and Bosjesvehl. 
 
 irom thirty-five to seventy-five miles distant from Cap* 
 
 Town. 
 
CAPE OF GOOD UOPL. 14^ 
 
 In Albany, a district in the eastern part of the Colony. 
 the Wesleyan Missionary Society has its chief station at 
 Graham's Town, with subordinate Nation:* at Salem and 
 several other places. 
 
 Farther in the interior of South Africa, as far as the 
 Great Orange River, dwell the roving tribes of the Bos- 
 jesmans, the Namaquas, the Coranas, arid others. All 
 these, like the Cadres in general, are a handsome vigor- 
 ous race of men, of a brown colour, and with woolk 
 hair. Here, in luxuriant valleys, enclosed by immense 
 sandy deserts, vast forest.-, and detached ranges of hill.-. 
 they subsist by some little agriculture and the produce of 
 their herds of cattle. Some of them have a notion of u 
 .supreme, invisible Being — but the belief in sorcery and 
 conjuration is the religion of most. Many of thern arc 
 reported to have never yel reflected whether that which 
 icels and thinks in them be any thing more than the bod) 
 or not. When Campbell asked two Bosjesmans, " Who 
 placed the sun yonder in the firmament and prevents it 
 from falling V* — they replied, u We cannot tell, but have 
 often wondered at it ourselves." 
 
 With pious ardour and self-denial the missionaries have 
 advanced beyond the Orange River into the very heart ol 
 ?!ie Griqua country. Their missions extend to the town 
 of Griqua itself, and into the territory of the Bootsuan- 
 nas, who surpass the other tribes in knowledge, and even 
 understand the art of working copper and iron. At Lat- 
 takoo, the capital of the latter, situated on the river ol 
 the same name, at the distance of six hundred and thirty 
 miles from the Cape, King Mateebe, on his return from 
 a jackal hunt, granted thern permission to teach among 
 his people. " Send your priests," said he, " I will be a 
 father to them." The town of Lattakoo, which is neat!) 
 built, contains about fifteen hundred houses and eight 
 thousand inhabitants. The people manifest a certain 
 degree of civilization and considerable mechanical indus 
 try. Twenty other great tribes, still farther northward in 
 the interior of Africa, all speak the language of the Boot 
 duannas, and are said to be more polished than the inha- 
 bitants of Lattakoo. 
 
 Attempts to establish missions have also been made in 
 13* 
 
,;>l> SURVEY OF CIIRISTIAKITY. 
 
 the immense territory of the red Caffres, on the east coast, 
 to the north of the Great Fish River, where the Tamboo- 
 kies, the Mambookies, the Makinas, with their copper 
 and iron mines, and other tribes, dwell in proud indepen- 
 dence, in regions never before visited by any European. 
 
 The number of the Caffres subject to the three chiefs, 
 T'Gaika, Hinza, and Slambie, is computed at about 
 130,000 souls. The Tambookies amount to about the 
 same number, and their most distant kraalls are not much 
 more than two hundred miles from the territory of the 
 Cape. The Wesleyan and the London Missionary Socie- 
 ties have stations in the CafTre country ; the introduction 
 of Christianity seems to be encouraged by some of the 
 most powerful of the chiefs ; and hopes are entertained 
 ihat, from the prudent measures of the local Government 
 of the Cape on the one hand, and on the other the confi- 
 dence with which the natives have been inspired by their 
 intercourse with the missionaries, the wars which till re- 
 cently were constantly occurring on the borders will give 
 place to a state of settled peace. 
 
 During the last years, however, there have been great 
 commotions among the tribes to the eastward of Caffraria. 
 The whole land has been in a state of warfare, and thou- 
 sands of the wretched inhabitants, apparently the rem- 
 nants of various tribes, driven from their respective coun- 
 tries, have sought an asylum among the Tambookies and 
 the Caffres. These wars seem to have commenced near 
 Delagoa Bay ; and some of the tribes to have proceeded 
 northward, others in a westerly direction, and others 
 toward the Caffre frontier. Great numbers appear to 
 have perished from famine ; but these restless tribes arc 
 now again at peace. 
 
 In the Bootsuanna country the operations of the mis- 
 sionaries sent out by the London and Wesleyan Societies 
 have been lately suspended, in consequence of the con- 
 tentions of different tribes, but the labourers have 
 since returned to their posts. Jn this country the scarcity 
 of rain is found to be a great obstacle to agriculture. The 
 missionaries assured the Rev. Dr. Philip, at the time of 
 his visit in 1825, that a shower to moisten the earth is a 
 *are circumstance j and that for five years they had not 
 
CAPE or GOOD HOVE. 151 
 
 seen a drop of rain-water running on the surface of the 
 ground. Accordingly their sole dependence for corn and 
 vegetables is upon irrigation, and, to procure water for 
 this purpose at New Lattakoo, they had to cut a channel 
 two miles in length and from three to five feet in width. It 
 is rarely that even a cloud is seen. Clouds and shade im- 
 part to a Bootsuanna a more lively idea of felicity than 
 sunshine and fine weather to an Englishman. In the 
 language of these people pulo, rain, is the only word which 
 they have for a blessing — and showers of rain are truly 
 showers of blessings. 
 
 In the country of the Namaquas, the London Mission- 
 ary Society has stations at Bethany, l'ella, Steinkopf, 
 and Reed Fountain ; and the Wesley an Society, at Lily 
 Fountain in Little Namaqua land : but the frequent dis- 
 tress sustained by the Namaquas from want of pasturage, 
 and the interruption to the labours of the missionaries 
 resulting from the consequent necessity of moving from 
 one place to another in search of it, are powerful reasons 
 against increasing the number of missions among these 
 people. It would, however, be important if their various 
 tribes could be induced to settle in some part of the coun- 
 try, and to direct their attention to agriculture. With a 
 view to facilitate such a change in the state of that peo- 
 ple, a professional gentleman of South Africa purposes 
 surveying a portion of the Orange River in order to find 
 out, if possible, a spot where the irrigation of the adja- 
 cent lands would be practicable with a moderate expendi- 
 ture of labour. Should this project succeed, the labours 
 of the missionaries among the Namaquas will be eventu- 
 ally prosecuted under circumstances far more favourable 
 to the systematic application of means for their religious 
 and social improvement. 
 
 It would appear that some of the advantages here con- 
 templated have been enjoyed by the VVesleyan missiona- 
 ries, who report that at the Khamiesberg a considerable 
 part of the tribe of Little Namaquas have been reduced 
 from migratory habits to the cultivation of the soil and 
 the practice of useful arts, and that they have wholh 
 renounced idolatry and their native superstitions. Build- 
 ings, fields, and gardens, have here taken the place of the 
 
io2 survey or Christianity. 
 
 former Hottentot kraal. Another great benefit which 
 these people have derived from the settlement of the mis- 
 sionaries among them is the exemption from those hostili- 
 ties, from which none of the tribes of Africa hitherto dis- 
 covered in a purely heathen state are free. Before Chris- 
 tianity was introduced among the Namaquas, their neigh- 
 bours, the Bosjesmans, were frequently making attacks 
 on them and stealing their cattle, in consequence of which 
 much blood was shed : but, since they have been collected 
 upon one spot and have had a missionary residing among 
 them, they have had nothing to fear either from enemies 
 without, or from any who might be disaffected within : for 
 the Bosjesmans dare not now venture to attack the Nama- 
 quas, and the latter will not attack the Bosjesmans, having 
 learned from the Gospel to regard them as the offspring ol 
 the same common parent. 
 
 The better we become acquainted with the CafTres, 
 through the courage and perseverance of the missionaries, 
 the more we are compelled to recant those prejudices 
 which we entertained regarding those tribes. They are 
 more susceptible of improvement in domestic and social 
 matters, farther advanced in the diffusion of the conve- 
 niences of life, and more humane in their nature, than we 
 had imagined. — But they too learn to know us Europeans 
 by means of the missions in a more favourable point of 
 view, and discover, that we are not merely bloodthirsty, 
 rapacious barbarians, who come across the sea to make 
 slaves, and to seek gold, bringing in exchange stupefying 
 liquors and murderous weapons ; or to wrest their liberty 
 from independent nations, their land from its ancient in- 
 habitants, and to sow discord between valiant tribes that we 
 may exterminate them with the greater ease. The pious 
 missionaries of our days traverse Africa accompanied by 
 the Bible and the plough. 
 
 If Dutch boors in the environs of Cape Town have 
 heretofore hunted down Bosjesmans like wild beasts and 
 shot them without ceremony, is it matter of surprise that 
 the CafTre tribes should transmit their abhorrence of 
 Christians from generation to generation ? — Thanks to 
 the efforts of later missionaries, they prove more and 
 more successful in healing misunderstandings, in recon* 
 
CAPE OF GOOD IIOl'E. 153 
 
 oiling long exasperated nations, and in rendering even 
 European traders more Christian-like. Things which 
 formerly could not be done at all are now done openly. 
 There are even free schools at Cape Town for slaves, 
 which are attended by brown and black pupils between 
 the ages of six years and thirty. Though these institu- 
 tions are not founded by the public authorities, but by phi- 
 lanthropic individuals, still those authorities are entitled to 
 praise when they do not throw obstacles in the way of 
 improvement. 
 
 The colonial government of the Cape has not, however, 
 been content of late with earning this barren praise. 
 Not only has it afforded encouragement to the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity among the bordering tribes, but it has 
 issued an ordinance for facilitating commerce with the 
 Caffres and other nations situated beyond the boundaries 
 of the colony. Some of its regulations have a strong 
 moral tendency. Thus it is ordained that no one shall 
 pass the limits of the colony for the purpose of trading 
 without a license — that licenses shall be granted to 
 persons of good character only — that no one shall be au- 
 thorized to carry beyond the boundaries fire-arms, offen- 
 sive weapons, or ammunition, beyond what may be 
 deemed necessary for personal defence — that any person 
 convicted of maltreating or defrauding a Caffre or any 
 other foreigner shall be subject to fine or imprisonment — 
 that any goods, merchandise, or cattle, which may be 
 legally sold within the colony may also be offered for sale 
 or barter to the tribes beyond it, except fire-arms, offensive 
 weapons, ammunition, and spirituous liquors, such things 
 being declared to be contraband, and persons seized with 
 them are to be dealt with according to law. By the en- 
 forcement of such Christian regulations the British go- 
 vernment cannot fail to acquire a most beneficial and 
 increasing influence among the pagan nations bordering 
 upon its territories. 
 
 The Commissioners of inquiry, who have lately been 
 engaged in the investigation of the state of this colony, 
 have suggested its division into two provinces, a measure 
 which has received his majesty's approbation. The 
 Western Province will comprise the districts of the Cape. 
 
154 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Stellenbosch, Zwellendam, Worcester, and Clanwilli am : 
 the Eastern will consist of the districts of Graaf Reinet. 
 Beaufort, Somerset, Albany, Uitenhage, and George. 
 The superficial extent of the two provinces is nearly equal. 
 The population of the former amounts to forty-five 
 thousand free persons and twenty-nine thousand slaves : 
 its produce consists chiefly of corn and wine. Cape 
 Town, notwithstanding its admitted disadvantages in 
 some respects, will continue to be its seat of government. 
 The population of the Eastern Province is estimated at 
 about forty thousand free persons and six thousand five 
 hundred slaves : it chiefly affords pasturage for cattle ; 
 and its capital will be either Uitenhage or Grahamtown. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA — CONGO LOANGO. 
 
 Beyond the Great Orange River, northward of its 
 mouths, extends a region nearly fifteen hundred miles in 
 length along the west coast of Africa, in no part of which 
 European settlements are to be found : nay, by far the 
 greater part of this region is still an unknown country. 
 The seaman calls an immense tract of it by no other 
 name than " The Desert Coast," and where there are in* 
 habitants, as near Cape Negro, they are described as 
 cannibals. Such are the Zimbebes and Jaggas. 
 
 It is not till we reach the coast of Benguela, Angola, 
 and Congo, that we again meet with European towns and 
 forts. In these hot and fertile countries, the Portuguese 
 have ancient and extensive possessions. Their towns of 
 San Salvador and Pemba in Congo, Loanda de San Pablo 
 in Angola, and San Felibe in Benguela, each containing 
 from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants, are annually 
 visited by caravans, bringing gold-dust and ivory from the 
 unknown interior of Africa. This is Portugal's African 
 
CONGO — LOATJGO. 155 
 
 Brasil, divided into dutchies, counties, and marquiaates. 
 which are ruled by royal governors and viceroys. 
 
 The clergy of the episcopal diocesses here have caused 
 Christianity to be preached to the Negroes ever since the 
 fifteenth century. But, with the exception of prisoners 
 and slaves, or tribes dependent on the forts of Portugal, the 
 Christian faith has not won any free nation : for, when the 
 inhabitants of the country considered the way of life and 
 the cruelty of the white strangers, who dispossessed them of 
 their lands and carried away their captive brethren beyond 
 seas, they were filled with horror of the God of such people, 
 and with the bitterest hatred against all who embraced the 
 worship of that God. It is known that the Jagga Negroes 
 have peculiarly sanguinary associations (Quixiles) for 
 preventing the propagation of the faith of the Whites ; and 
 they carry on a war of extermination. 
 
 In those parts, however, of Congo, Loango, and other 
 countries, which are more or less subject to the Portu- 
 guese, the Gospel has already made great progress 
 through the courage of individual missionaries. It is 
 computed that the number of converted Negroes far 
 exceeds one hundred thousand. Several native princes 
 even are Catholics. This change is chiefly owing to the 
 zeal and exertions of the Capuchins. 
 
 According to the reports of Father Antonio Zuchelli, 
 who in the early part of the eighteenth century traversed 
 Congo as a preacher, and even converted the sovereign of 
 Sogno, a kingdom then dependent on Loango, the Chris- 
 tianity of the Negroes in his time was not of the purest kind. 
 Together with the outward forms of the Romish worship, 
 they adhered to their ancient pagan customs, their hideous 
 lamentations around the dying and the dead, their adora- 
 tion of the black goat, which Zuchelli of course regarded 
 a3 the representative of the devil, and other usages. The 
 zealous Capuchin, unable to devise more effectual means 
 of enforcing his exhortations, would frequently seize a 
 cudgel to beat better convictions into the graceless 
 Negroes. 
 
 French ecclesiastics also founded missions in 1 766 in 
 the countries of Cacongo and Loango. In their reports 
 they spoke in high terms of the joyful welcome which, af 
 
156 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 servants of God, they received from the congregations ot 
 Christian Negroes. The missions in Cacongo, Congo, 
 and Benguela, are still kept up, though with a good deal 
 of interruption, and feebly supported: for the tropical 
 climate, with its long continued rains, followed by the 
 rapidly drying harmattan, and with its intense heat, which 
 is suddenly moderated by the tempestuous winds of tor- 
 nadoes, gives a fatal shock to the constitutions of Euro* 
 peans on their first arrival in the country. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GUINEA — SIERRA LEONE — CHRISTIANITY OF GAMBIA. 
 
 If the Christian faith makes but slow progress in those 
 countries which are called Lower Guinea, it is not owing 
 entirely to the perverseness of the Africans or the evils of 
 the climate, but still more to the careless indifference of the 
 Portuguese. Upper Guinea, from Cape Negro to the 
 Sierra Leone mountains, is equally visited by tornadoes 
 and harmattans', scorching heat and deluges of rain ; but 
 the Europeans settled here, English, Dutch, Danes, and 
 French, are of a more active turn, better versed in the arts 
 and sciences, more skilful in the preservation of health, 
 and at the same time more humane, or more prudent, in 
 their treatment of the natives. 
 
 All the settlements hitherto formed in Upper Guinea 
 appear, indeed, to the eye but as very widely scattered 
 points in a tract of country two thousand five hundred 
 miles in length. Here dwell yet unnumbered tribes of 
 Negroes, especially toward the interior of this great 
 continent. 
 
 In Upper as well as in Lower Guinea the aboriginal 
 inhabitants are heathen. They adore, it is true, or at least 
 have a notion of an invisible God, but pray with stupid 
 superstition to works of Nature or images made with their 
 own hands, because the antiquity of the practice or the 
 priests have instilled into them a profound reverence foi' 
 
GUINEA. 1 57 
 
 ibis fetish worship. They have in general but one and 
 the same name for heaven and the Supreme Being, and 
 almost every nation has its peculiar hierarchy of gods or 
 fetishes. The latter are honoured for their supposed 
 magical, healing, or protecting properties, without being 
 regarded as actual deities, especially if they have been 
 made by human hands. Many believe the immortality of 
 the soul. The Mandingo Negroes pray for deceased 
 friends. The Onninas, in the midst of the battle, sing 
 hymns to God. The Temboos pray in the morning : 
 1(> God help us ! we know not whether we shall be alive 
 to-morrow; we are in thy hand!' 1 Oldendorp, the mis- 
 sionary, heard a VVatje Negress in the Caribbee islands 
 pronounce this prayer: "O God, I know thee not, but 
 thou knowest me ! I have need of thy help." 
 
 Almost all the \egro nations of Africa have priests and 
 priestesses, who { r -sent the prayers and offerings of the 
 people to the gods and return answers in their name. 
 Owing to the ignorance of the laity, the priesthood is of 
 course a thriving profession. It is the priests who intimate 
 to princes as well as to subjects what kind of offerings, 
 whether cows, sheep, silks, young females, or spirituous 
 liquors, will be the most acceptable gifts to the wolf, the 
 -acred serpent, or the black he-goat. The people are 
 misused by the kings as well as by the priests. The Negro 
 kings, mostly despotic sovereigns, are cruel that they 
 rmy appear powerful : their harems are not rarely filled 
 with thousands of women, who in some places form an 
 armed body-guard for their masters ; and their entertain- 
 ments are often marked by the massacre of prisoners of 
 war, or of their own subjects. On occasion of the death 
 of the king of Akim, three hundred and thirty-six of the 
 women of his harem had their arms, legs, and ribs, 
 broken, and were then buried alive. Dy way of display- 
 ing the horrible magnificence of princes, it is sometimes 
 the practice to conduct ambassadors who are presented to 
 them through whole files of men's and horses' heads 
 which have been recently cut off. 
 
 Many Europeans beheld it is true with horror this fero- 
 cious disposition of the nations of Africa, but they took 
 'ittle pains to correct it. They rather sought to turn the 
 14 
 
158 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 military barbarity of the Negro chiefs to profitable account 
 The slave-traders, it is well known, surpassed the .Negro 
 princes in obdurate inhumanity. How many millions of 
 wretched blacks have been in the course of centuries 
 carried across the sea from Guinea by Europeans ! fre- 
 quently more than a hundred thousand in one year, 
 scarcely half of whom ever saw the shores of the New 
 World, numbers of them perishing during the voyage of 
 grief, of cruel treatment, or in mutinies, or wilfully putting 
 an end to their lives in a variety of ways. When once, so 
 Oldendorp relates, many Negroes on board a ship had 
 resolved to starve themselves to death, the captain could 
 not devise any expedient to deter them from their des- 
 perate purpose, but to cut one of them in little pieces, 
 and threaten the rest of them with a similar fate unless 
 they took their food as usual. This treatment seemed 
 to them much worse than any thing they had yet antici- 
 pated from futurity, and they submitted to their melan- 
 choly lot. 
 
 The execrable traffic of Christian nations continued 
 till the commencement of the nineteenth century. So 
 long as the shores of Guinea rise above the surface of the 
 ocean, will future ages recount the atrocities of Euro- 
 peans, but remember also with emotion the philanthropic 
 Wilberforces, Sharps, Thorntons, Clarksons, and others, 
 who first lent a hand to terminate these horrors. It is 
 remarkable that no Christian sovereign, no minister, no 
 statesman, first conceived and set about the execution of 
 the simply grand and humane idea. No, they were plain, 
 honest, pious people, Quakers of Pennsylvania, who first 
 abolished the slavery of the Negroes, and whose example 
 was immediately followed (in 1801) by the whole republic 
 of the United States of America and Denmark. But, so 
 lately as 1813, a European sovereign — the king of Por- 
 tugal — could formally authorize the traffic in his black 
 fellow-creatures! The British were generous enough to 
 bring back his Most Faithful Majesty by force to the 
 duties of humanity, by taking such of his ships as were 
 found engaged in the slave-trade, and setting at liberty 
 the blacks on board them. 
 
 The work begun by humanity the heroism of Christian 
 
SIERRA LEONE. 159 
 
 virtue completed on those coasts, which were so long the 
 theatre of ineffable cruelties. 
 
 In 1771 Granville Sharp, a wealthy and benevolent 
 man, having espoused the cause of a Negro boy, whom 
 the captain of a slave-ship claimed as his property, and 
 would have carried out of the country against his will, 
 brought the question before the Court of King's Bench, 
 and the rerdiet of the jury on this occasion decided that 
 " the slave who sets foot on the soil of England shall be 
 free as any native of the country." At the conclusion of 
 the American war there were actually several hundred 
 Negroes living in London, free but unprovided for, and 
 reduced to the lowest state of indigence. On this occa- 
 sion, the same Granville Sharp conceived the idea of 
 founding, in association with other philanthropic indi- 
 viduate, a British Negro colony on the west coast of 
 Africa, in the year 1787a convenient site at Cape Sierra 
 Leone was pu chased of the Negro princes there ; it was 
 speedily enlarged by fresh purchases in the neighbour- 
 hood ; and a now town, called Freetown, was built in the 
 harbour of George Bay and peopled with free Negroes. 
 The Sierra Leone Company, formed in London, soon 
 obtained tic public confidence, immunities from the go- 
 vernment, and considerable contributions from new mem 
 bers. The colony in Africa rapidly increased every year, 
 especially after the abolition of the slave-trade. Fort 
 Thornton was built; in 1809 a new town, called King- 
 ston, was began, and r it the same time a new retreat for 
 NeL/.»es was founded at the foot of Leicester mountain, 
 aftjr which it was named, and chiefly peopled with mem- 
 bers of the Aiuhera tribe, who were induced by the grant 
 of various privileges to settle there. Village after village 
 was raise.* by the Negroes liberated from the slave-ships 
 who wese brought thither. 
 
 The chief object of this settlement was not commercial 
 gain so much as the civilization of the natives. To this 
 end a distint I Society was formed in London in 1807, for 
 the purpose of diffusing useful knowledge in Africa. Its 
 efforts were aided by the excellent Missionary Societies of 
 England. In ah the towns of the new colony schools were 
 founded for adults as well as children ; churches erected ; 
 
ido 
 
 SUJiVE7 OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 preachers of the Gospel of Christ and of brotherly love 
 sent forth into the surrounding countries ; the neighbour- 
 ing Negro princes won by presents, commercial advanta- 
 ges, and. (he gratuitous instruction of their children in Eu- 
 ropean arts and sciences ; Bibles distributed by thousands 
 ill tiie native languages ; journeys of discovery underta- 
 ken ; Negroes of superior talents trained for teachers and 
 even for missionaries — in short nothing has been neglected 
 which could lead to the improvement of the social state 
 among the inhabitants of the west coast of Africa. 
 
 In 1821 an act of parliament passed for abolishing the 
 African company, vesting its possessions in the British 
 crown, and annexing these and all other territories of his 
 majesty between the 20th degree of north latitude and the 
 20th degree of south latitude, to iSierra Leone, and making 
 them dependencies of that colony. Thus all the British 
 possessions scattered through forty degrees of latitude, ap- 
 proaching on the south the colony of the Cape and on the 
 north the empire of Morocco, are placed under one system 
 Of administration, from which measure great advantages 
 to the civilization of Western Africa may reasonably be 
 anticipated. 
 
 Some Negro tribes dwelling in the vicinity of the colo- 
 ny, in order to obtain security from the attacks of enemies 
 by whom their people were either murdered or sold into 
 slavery, have recently placed themselves under the pro- 
 tection of the British government and ceded their coun- 
 tries to the crown, on condition that the undisturbed pos- 
 session of their private property should be guaranteed to 
 them. It was to support the horrible trade in slaves that 
 the surrounding nations were constantly engaged in the 
 sanguinary wars which have nearly depopulated the once 
 rich and fertile countries of the Sherbro, which form part 
 of these cessions, and from which it is computed that be- 
 tween fifteen and twenty thousand wretched inhabitants 
 were annually carried into slavery. The great slave-deal- 
 ers, who retired from the country on the conclusion of this 
 convention, resolved to reestablish their traffic by force ; 
 and Sir Charles Turner, who succeeded the unfortunate 
 ?ir Charles M'Carthy in the government of Sierra Leone. 
 
SIERRA LEONE. 161 
 
 was obliged to take active measures for subduing the in- 
 surgents. 
 
 Bj the return of 1822, Freetown, the capital of Sierra 
 Leone, contained nearly six thousand souls, and the whole 
 co'ony about seventeen thousand inhabitants : of these 
 more than fiftern thousand were natives of Africa ; the 
 rest being chiefly Europeans, Maroons, and Nova Scotia 
 settlers. Of those born in Africa upwards of eleven thou- 
 sand had been liberated from the holds of vessels, which 
 were carrying them into interminable bondage. Nearly 
 nine thousand of the latter dwell in sixteen settlements, 
 where schools are established and religious instruction is 
 dispensed by the agents of the Church Missionary Society. 
 At the end of the year 1826 the number of scholars in 
 these places and in Freetown amounted to two thousand 
 and seventy-five, and that of communicants to four hun- 
 dred and forty-three. In the preceding year the liberated 
 Africans of these settlements, exclusively of Freetown, 
 sold to government alone surplus produce to the amount 
 of 3500/. 
 
 When the late Sir Neil Campbell assumed the govern- 
 ment of the colony, he formed the villages of liberated Afri- 
 cans into three divisions, which received names descriptive 
 of their locality. The Eastern or River District comprises 
 Kissey, Wellington, Allen Town, Hastings, Waterloo, 
 and Calmont, which lie in a south-east direction from Free- 
 town, in the order here mentioned, along the eastern bor- 
 der of the colony on the Bunce River and the Timmanee 
 country. The Central or Mountain District comprises 
 Leicester, Gloucester, Regent, Bathurst, Wilberforce, 
 Charlotte, and Grassfield. The Western or Sea District 
 comprises York, Kent, and the Bananas Islands. Thi* 
 division is well adapted to its object, the efficient and eco- 
 nomical application of the labours of superintendents and 
 teachers. 
 
 About the year 1820, the late Sir George Collier, then 
 commander of the British naval force on this station, in 
 two reports on the African settlements, bore honourable 
 testimony to the great improvement of the colony : — 
 'Roads," says he, " are cut in every direction, useful for 
 ommunication ; many towns and villages arc built and 
 14* 
 
162 suevev or chkistiasity* 
 
 others are building, as the black population increases 
 More improvement, under all circumstances of climate 
 and infancy of colony, is scarcely to be expected. I visit- 
 ed all the Black towns and villages, attended the public 
 schools and other establishments, and never witnessed in 
 any population more contentment and happiness. " 
 
 The then governor, Sir Charles M'Carthy, also stated 
 as the result of his own observation in the same year, that 
 the whole of the country round Kissey, a place containing 
 about thirteen hundred inhabitants, was in a state of very 
 <*ood cultivation ; displaying in every direction extensive 
 helds of rice, cassada, and ground-nuts ; that the parish was 
 not only likely to furnish that year sufficient for its own 
 wants, but to supply its neighbours with every kind of 
 produce then cultivated in the peninsula. Almost all the 
 grain and vegetables brought to the market at Freetown 
 are grown in this parish. The mountains close to the 
 town afford the finest timber. Many of the inhabitants 
 are employed in burning shells to make lime ; and, from 
 the abundance of the shells and the facility of conveying 
 them by water to Kissey, this place will probably becorrtc 
 the chief mart for the supply of lime to every part of the 
 colony. 
 
 To show the scale upon which some of the public works 
 here are executed, it will be sufficient to mention that, 
 according to the Report of the Church Missionary SocieU 
 for 1827, a road was then making from the settlement of 
 Waterloo to Maharra, in the Timmanee country, about 
 one hundred miles distant, which was expected to promote 
 greatly the communications with the natives. 
 
 The Americans are joining their exertions to those of 
 the British for the suppression of that bane of African ci- 
 vilization, the slave-trade, by the establishment of a colony 
 o/ Free Blacks from America and liberated Africans. For 
 this purpose land was purchased at Cape Mesurado, and 
 thither the settlers removed in 1822, after a temporary re- 
 sidence at Sierra Leone. They had not been long there 
 however, before they were attacked by the natives, whom 
 they repulsed with great loss, but not without suffering s<> 
 severely themselves as to be obliged to abandon the settle 
 merit. Not dauhfedby this disaster, the Colonization Sto 
 
srEBiiA LEOSE. J63 
 
 eiely, under whose auspices this enterprise was undertaken, 
 sent out a second body of colonists. The territory pur- 
 chased for this settlement has received the name of Libe- 
 ria, and the district which comes more immediately within 
 its influence extends about three hundred miles from the 
 river Gallenas to the country of the Kromen. Its capital, 
 named Monrovia, after the late President of the United 
 States, already containing a population of one thousand 
 souls, is situated about half a mile from the mouth of the 
 river Mesurado, and defended by a strong fort. Four fac- 
 tories, or trading- establishments, have been formed on the 
 coast ; between these and Monrovia a small schooner is 
 kept constantly running, and this is one of the sources to 
 which the new colony is indented for its abundant means 
 of subsistence and remarkable prosperity The town is 
 now perfectly secure from the natives, and its inhabitants 
 not only enjoy in profusion the comforts of life but many 
 of them have acquired considerable property 
 
 If greater success has not attended the efforts of the 
 Christian labourers in this quarter, it is partly owing to the 
 extreme insalubrity of the climate to European constitu- 
 tions and the rapid mortality of the missionaries engaged 
 in the good work. Hence it is obvious, that a main object 
 with the philanthropic Societies, whose efforts are directed 
 to the extension of the benevolent doctrines of Cnristianity, 
 should be to provide native labourers to whom at least part 
 of the task might be devolved. A few able Europeans 
 may, therefore, by devoting themselves to the superinten- 
 dence of seminaries or colleges of native youths in their 
 own countries, both save a great expenditure of the lives 
 of European teachers and contribute to the more rapid 
 advance of Christianity among the heathen. 
 
 The following pertinent remarks on this important sub- 
 ject occur in a recent R.eport of one of the County Asso- 
 ciations of the Church Missionary Society: — • 
 
 " To raise Sierra Leone to its full efficiency as a pharos 
 of light to Western Africa, three requisites are indispensa- 
 bly necessary — 1st, The promotion of general education 
 to such an extent that the English language shall be 
 spoken in its native purity throughout the colony, and be 
 fclren-ce transmitted to the neighbouring states— Sudly, Tin 
 
164 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 establishment of two schools for the special purpose* of 
 qualifying pious natives to become schoolmasters and 
 schoolmistresses, by affording them a superior and appro- 
 priate education — and 3dly, The erection of an efficient 
 Christian Institution, wherein native Africans of superior 
 intelligence and decided piety might be trained for the 
 ministerial office. The re-captured Negroes located in 
 Sierra Leone speak every dialect of Western Africa, and 
 will be the fittest instruments, when properly educated, to 
 translate elementary works and even the Scriptures them- 
 selves into their own tongues : and, when grounded in the 
 Arabic language and able to understand tho»Kjoran in the 
 original, they will be prepared to meet the Moslem teach- 
 ers on their own ground, to oppose the Gospel of Christ to 
 the law of Muhamed, where alone that law is gaining an 
 increasing ascendancy over the human mind, and thus to 
 bring Christianity into a fair and efficient competition with 
 the dominant and only proselyting religion of Northern 
 and Western Africa. 
 
 u With feelings of peculiar satisfaction, your Committee 
 have perceived in the recent discoveries made by Major 
 Denham and Captain Clapperton what may possibly re- 
 move the grand difficulty, which has hitherto retarded the 
 education of converts for missionary purposes from among 
 the re-captured Negroes of Sierra Leone. That difficulty 
 has been the insalubrity of the climate of Western Africa, 
 and the consequent want of a healthy spot for a Christian 
 Institution. In the Bight of Benin, where the Niger emp- 
 ties itself by means of a Delta into the Atlantic, is situated 
 the island Fernando Po ; where, to use the language of a 
 modern author, ' health and safety dwell ; and where, 
 commanding the outlets of the Niger, Great Britain would 
 command the trade, the improvement, and the civilization 
 of all Northern Central Africa.' A second salubrious 
 situation where, as far as health is concerned, a Christian 
 Institution and schools might be conducted with perfect 
 safety is mentioned by the same travellers : this is a high 
 lable-land within the tropic, chiefly in the parallel of 12° 
 ir 13° north. Your Committee hail this most important 
 discovery as an opening of Providence for facilitating mis- 
 sionarv exertions in Western Africa ; and thev trust thai 
 
SIEREA LE0KE. 165 
 
 the Society will be enabled by the increasing liberality and 
 personal services of Ls friends to avail itself of this oppor- 
 tunity of usefulness to the benighted children of Ham." 
 
 The Committee of the Church Missionary Society enter- 
 ing entirely into these views of their intelligent associates, 
 are taking measures for placing the Christian Institution of 
 Sierra Leone on an efficient footing. This design has 
 bee;, the subject of much correspondence and d< liberation, 
 as the Society nave come to the fixed determination of 
 prosecuting, by ah means in their power, and in any place, 
 whether in Europe, or in Africa, which nay ultimately 
 prove most dhglble, the education of intelligent and pious 
 natives, with the viewoftheii becoming. Christian teachers 
 among their countrymen. 
 
 Meanwhile the British Government has authorized the 
 formation of a settlement in the isktnd of Fernando Po, 
 and an experiment is about to be made under the duec- 
 tion of Lieutenant colonel Denham or. a portion of the 
 liberated Africans, to communicate, to them a practical 
 knowledge of agriculture. It appears also that, during 
 the brief government of the late Sir Neil Campbell, a 
 new plan was formed for the education of the iiberated 
 African children, whom he proposed to concentrate into 
 three large schools, one for each of the three districts, into 
 which he had divided the villages ; but his death, which 
 took place shortly afterwards, will probably lea..; to new 
 arrangements. 
 
 Thus has Sierra Leone become one of the most impor- 
 tant points in these regions for -the population of Africa. 
 There, on a lately desert traci, are now, as we have seen, 
 upwards of seventeen thousand Negroes — mostly rescued 
 from the clutches of ruthless slave- smugglers, instructed 
 in the Christian religion and rhe arts of civilized life. 
 
 A striking proof of the moral influence which the colony 
 has acquired over the neighbouring tribes, even where 
 their strongest and most inveterate prejudices are con- 
 cerned, was exhibited at the decease of King George of 
 Bullom, who died in May 182d. at the advanced age, it 
 is said, of 1 10 years The Bulioms had not till this time 
 suffered their Kings to die a natural death, but always 
 despatched them when they considered them about to 
 
166 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 expire, sacrificing two human victims, whom they buried 
 in the same grave. In the present instance, the fear of 
 involving themselves in trouble, or " getting a palaver," 
 as they term it, with Sierra Leone, led them to dispense 
 with the cruel practice. 
 
 From this spot too the knowledge of useful trades, the 
 improved modes of cultivating rice and cotton, and the 
 processes of ,;griculture and gardening, are spread far 
 around among the Negro tribes, and with them the doc- 
 trines of the Christian re-igion, from Cape iegio to the 
 gum-forests on the Senegal. Philip Quaque, a black mis- 
 sionary, preached the Gospel to the tribes on the Gold 
 Coast, in ihe Amina language. It v»ar proclaimed, as 
 in the settlements of Sierra Leone, at Yongn Pomoh on 
 the coast of JBuiam, likewise at Bashia and at CanofTe, on 
 the shores of the Rio Pongas, at Gambier, >v, the river 
 Dembia, on the island of Goree, in the Senegal, at the 
 mouths of thi Senegal, and in many pthei places. Bri- 
 tish liberality cheerfully furnibhes abundant contributions 
 in support of the great work of the civilizatior of Africa; 
 and the successive governors, Sir Charles M Oarthy in 
 particular, have distinguished themselves by •« teal enthu- 
 siasm in behalf of the sacred cause. 
 
 Compared wi'h such enterprises, indeed, all the earlier 
 missionary attempts made on the west coast of Africa by 
 the French and Portuguese must b regard* as insignifi- 
 cant, (n these no attention *vas paid to the melioration of 
 the social state of the Negro tribes, by the introduction of 
 schools &r,t't useful arts and by the improvement of agricul- 
 ture. The 'Uorts oi individuals were not seconded by their 
 respective governments, and the good they effected in many 
 instances expired vita them or soon after their decease; 
 
 Thus; for iXHinpie, Christianity was planted some cen- 
 turies I ick in the Negro kingdom of Barra, on the river 
 Gambia. If was carried thither hy French ecclesiastics 
 from the FrencJ feci ry of Albreda, in the adjacent 
 country. c Jo early as the commencement of the eigh- 
 teenth century, several Christian congregations /ere 
 formed ; bul -or war,- of missionaries they were dissolved 
 or degenerated. When he Abbe Oemanet arrived there 
 in the year 1764, he found remnants of the Christians in 
 
CHRISTIANITY ON THE GAMBIA. IG'i 
 
 seven villages only, where a priest had not been seen for 
 twenty years. He there revived the love for Christianity, 
 as well as in the Negro States of Sin, Thin, and Barbesin, 
 in the neighbourhood of the isle of Goree. The King of 
 Sin treated him courteously. " The Christians," said he 
 to the Abbe, " are my best subjects. I worship, indeed, 
 the same great God that thou dost ; but the mysteries of 
 thy religion I cannot comprehend. Make all my people 
 Christians if thou wilt. I shall have no objection." — The 
 zealous missionary actually instructed and baptized about a 
 thousand Negroes in a short time : but his labours pro- 
 duced no permanent benefit, for the work begun by hiln 
 was but feebly prosecuted, and at length totally forgotten 
 in the wars and political revolutions of France. 
 
 I shall subjoin here a remarkable circumstance, com- 
 municated by Captain Smith, who was long resident at 
 Tripoli. He says, that among the Neg-o slaves, mostly 
 of a vigorous, handsome race, brought from the interior 
 of Africa to Tripoli, there are many who call themselves 
 Christians, though they are extremely ignorant and stran- 
 gers alike to circumcision and to the most ancient sym- 
 bol of Christianity — the Cross. One evening just as a 
 ship belonging to the Pacha of Tripoli, bringing some of 
 these slaves from Algiers, came to an anchor, the evening 
 bell was rung in a vessel which lay at a little distance, 
 The Negroes joyfully sprang up, called to their compa- 
 nions, embracing one another with transport and exclaim- 
 ing : " Campan ! Campan !" This Latin or Italian word 
 led the interpreter to inquire the cause of the general 
 joy. He was informed by the slaves, that in each of the 
 Negro towns of their native country there was an open 
 place, where stood a building provided with a bell. This 
 bell is rung morning and evening for prayers, after which 
 the priest delivers an exhortation to the assembly. The 
 people knew nothing of idols, or images of saints, in 
 their temples, but they seemed to have a sort of holy 
 communion. — Where is the country of these black Chris- 
 tians situated ? 
 
JS8 SURVEY OF dlRISTIAXHT, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS. 
 
 Thus is this vast continent more neglected by Euro- 
 peans than any other quarter of the globe. According to 
 the testimony of Mollien, who travelled in J 8 18 through 
 the interior of Africa to the sources of the Senegal and 
 Gambia, the doctrine of Muhamed is making more and 
 more progress among the nations of the interior, parti- 
 cularly in the country of Cayor. The schools are every- 
 where kept by Marabouts, and these teachers of the 
 Koran are treated with as much respect by the pagans a? 
 by the Muhamedans themselves. Circumcision is more- 
 over very general in these parts. Mollien observed at the 
 same time that the Muhamodan Negroes are strict in the 
 performance of the ceremonies of their religion, and that 
 they are also more humane and more civilized than the 
 heathen. In the interior of this portion of the globe the 
 Christian is either despised or feared ; because the eager- 
 ness after gold and oilier vices of Europeans are consi- 
 dered as being in a great measure the effect of their reli- 
 gion. 
 
 It is not improbable that the naval powers of Europe, 
 after the loss of their rich possessions in the West Indie* 
 and America, will seek compensation in Africa. Where 
 could they find it but in that quarter of the world, which 
 offers in abundance copper, gold, ivory, precious stones, 
 inim, spices, and numberless other commodities, which 
 western luxury requires ? — in that where the most valua- 
 ble of the vegetable productions of Asia and America may 
 he naturalized without trouble in suitable climates ? Whi- 
 ther could European sovereigns direct to greater advan- 
 tage the current of emigration, which sets at present 
 across the Atlantic, to add to the growing strength and 
 wealth of America by agriculture and manufactures ? 
 
WEST AFKICAN ISLANDS. 16i* 
 
 England has demonstrated since the commencement 
 of the present century that it is easier to gain the good 
 will of the Negro states by civilizing them than by force 
 of arms ; and the traffic with them, instead of being dimi- 
 nished, has increased since the abolition of the slave- 
 trade. 
 
 Next to the universal independence of America, the 
 civilization of the Africans by religious instruction and 
 the Christian faith will probably be the most beneficial 
 result to the human race of all the changes in the general 
 relations of States, which the present time is producing 
 or preparing. 
 
 . The Portuguese have in all ages proved themselves 
 zealous Catholics. In their West African Islands they, 
 like the Spaniards, made a particular point of extermina- 
 ting, with the aid of the Inquisition, all heathen, Jews. 
 Muhamedans, and Protestant Christians. There is rather 
 a superfluity than a want of churches, convents, and cha- 
 pels. It is nevertheless well known, from the accounts 
 of all modern travellers, how ignorant most of their clergy 
 are. In many islands the friars and secular clergy are 
 partly Negroes, partly Mulattoes, who receive but very 
 scanty instruction. Hence it is not surprising that the 
 trade of the greater part of the West African islands be- 
 longing to Spain and Portugal is in the hands of the Eng- 
 lish ; or that a considerable portion of the produce of the 
 Azore islands is paid for by Portugal with indulgences, 
 dispensations, relics, images of saints, and the like, 
 
 IS 
 
PART THE FOURTH. 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA — LAS CASA . 
 
 Those wars of conversion which have been carried on 
 by the disciples of JVJ uharned in three quarters of the globe, 
 since they were commenced by the Arabian Prophet, 
 surrounded by his heroes, the terrible Amru, the still more 
 terrible Kaled, called the sword of God, Ali, Abubeker, 
 and others, belong to the most disgraceful phenomena in 
 the history of mankind. Writers express to this day a 
 strong and just horror of the torrents of blood spilt in the 
 three quarters of the old world for the diffusion ot the doc- 
 trines of the Koran. 
 
 Truth, nevertheless, compels us to admit that the atro- 
 cities of the Saracens have not surpassed those perpe- 
 trated by the religious fury of Christians. Consider the 
 millions sacrificed by the madness of the Crusades for the 
 recovery of the holy sepulchre, or for the conversion of 
 the north of Europe, since the time of Charlemagne ; or 
 during the schism in the church, in massacres such as that 
 of St. Bartholomew ; and in the auto-da-fesof the Inqui- 
 sition ! Consider the wholesale destruction which attended 
 the planting of the Cross on the American coasts, when 
 these were scarcely discovered : — how nations were there 
 exterminated and the relics of them driven into the unknown 
 forests and mountains of the interior — how, in order to 
 rcpeople the deserts, their depopulators excited African 
 
AMEU1CA. 171 
 
 inbes to hostilities against one another, that they might 
 have opportunities of purchasing their prisoners of war — 
 how millions of Blacks were transported across the Ocean 
 to new regions of the earth, there to be detained for life 
 and treated with greater cruelty than irrational brutes 1 
 
 But no, these abominations, with which Christians pol- 
 luted America, scarcely originated in religious fanaticism. 
 That source would have been too noble ; it was nothing 
 but a base love of lucre, cloaked in the disguise of reli- 
 gious zeal. Its impious enormities, nevertheless, found 
 public defenders. A Doctor Sepulveda justified them, in 
 a book printed at Rome, by divine and human laws, and 
 by the example of the conduct of the people of God after 
 the conquest of Canaan. 
 
 This is not the proper place to treat of the founding of 
 the different European settlements along the coasts of the 
 American continent and on the islands, where Christian- 
 ity at the same time obtained permanent abodes. Chris- 
 tianity was long confined to the conquerors only. The 
 independent heathen justly abominated a religion, which 
 furnished occasion or pretext. for crimes such as no natives 
 of America could previously have conceived possible. 
 There were too few genuine disciples of Christ, who, like 
 the philanthropic Bartholomew de las Casas, might have 
 exhibited their faith in all its simplicity and loveliness. It is 
 remarkable that this illustrious martyr of beneficence is not 
 enrolled among the saints of the Romish Church. The 
 example of his virtues and his generous sentiments have, 
 however, exalted him into the Saint of Humanity. His 
 treatise on the question : " Can princes with a good con- 
 science, by any right, or by virtue of any title, transfer citi- 
 zens and subjects from their crowns to others ?" would 
 probably be found worth reprinting even at the present day. 
 
 In the first centuries subsequent to the discovery of 
 Atnerica, the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Ca- 
 puchins, rendered most service in preaching the Gospel in 
 the West India Islands and on the continent. When at 
 length the Dutch and English, following the example of 
 the Spaniards and Portuguese, made conquests in the New 
 World, the work of converting the Indians was zealously 
 commenced by Protestant divines also, The British So- 
 
172 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts 
 founded by act of Parliament in 1697, bestowed particular 
 attention on the English settlements in North America. 
 Its efforts in the holy work have been emulated during the 
 eighteenth century by the United or Moravian brethren. 
 Filled with generous enthusiasm to proclaim Christ, they 
 have penetrated into the extreme North of America, into 
 the snow-covered deserts of Labrador and Greenland, to 
 the vicinity of the yet undiscovered pole, whither neither 
 the love of conquest nor the thirst of gold has yet been 
 able to allure other Europeans. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LOST CHRISTIANITY ON THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND 
 
 THE VENERABLE HANS EGEDE THE BRETHREN'S 
 
 CONGREGATIONS IN GREENLAND. 
 
 There is a tradition that Greenland was discovered and 
 peopled so early as the eighth century by Eric Redhead, r 
 Norman, exiled from Ireland. In a Bull, issued by Pope 
 Gregory the Fourth in the year 835, the conversion of the 
 Icelanders and Greenlanders was especially recommended 
 to St. Ansgar, the first apostle of the North. In the 
 fourteenth century both the east and west coast of Green- 
 land were occupied by the Normans. On the nineteen 
 fiords, or bays, on the east side, were one hundred and 
 ninety villages and hamlets, divided into twelve parishes 
 together with two convents and an episcopal see, and on 
 the nine fiords on the west side there were in four parishes 
 about a hundred scattered places, which extended as high 
 as the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. The first bishop was 
 Arnold, a learned Norwegian priest, who came to Green- 
 land in the year 1123. 
 
 Famine and disease, however, swept away many of the 
 inhabitants, and after the fourteenth century North Ameri- 
 can savages from the coasts of Labrador, known at an 
 
GItEENLAXU. 173 
 
 Earlier period to theGreenlandersbythename of Skrallings, 
 thronged hither in their stead. These were Esquimaux, 
 probably a Tartar tribe driven from the north of Asia, and 
 which had not been able to find a permanent abode even 
 in barren Labrador. The remnant of the Normans re- 
 treated before them to the more inhospitable east coast of 
 Greenland, where at length almost all traces of them were 
 lost. It was only now and then that they appeared singly, 
 issuing from their deserts hemmed in by the sea and by 
 ice-mountains', and dreaded as cannibals by the Esquimaux. 
 
 Greenland was subsequently forgotten till the commer- 
 cial spirit of the fifteenth century awoke. The Christian 
 congregations which had subsisted there centuries before 
 Were again thought of, and it was hoped that an intercourse 
 might be opened with them. Adventurous mariners sought 
 them in vain on the east coasts. They found only blood- 
 thirsty Savages and masses of ice. 
 
 After the Danes, under seven kings, had ineffectually 
 endeavoured to find the lost Greenland of their ancestors, 
 they at length succeeded, through the Christian courage 
 and perseverance of a single individual. 
 
 Near the rugged Kiolian mountains in Norway lived 
 Hans Egede, pastor of the parish of Vogens, unknown to 
 the world and unacquainted with it. He one day re^ 
 collected having read that in former times Greenland had 
 been inhabited by Christians. From mere curiosity he 
 inquired of a friend at Bergen, who was engaged in the 
 ivhale fishery, what he knew concerning the state of Green- 
 land. His heart ached when he heard of the paganism of 
 the straggling individuals who were found, often to the de- 
 struction of mariners, on the desolate coasts. The idea 
 flashed across his mind, that he ought to go thither and en- 
 lighten the darkness with the word of Christ. He shrank 
 nevertheless from the thought, for he had a wife and child, 
 a moderate stipend, and no other resources. This was in 
 the year 1703. Strenuously as he strove to banish the 
 idea, it haunted him continually, and he could obtain no 
 peace, till he proceeded to carry it into effect, and commu* 
 nicated it in 1711 in hopes of finding support. He ad- 
 dressed petitions to the bishops of Drontheim and Bergen^ 
 to the College of Missions at Copenhagen, and to the royal 
 15* 
 
t 7-1 SUEVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 authorities, with proposals for founding a settlement ii. 
 Greenland, forming a commercial company, &c. Nobody 
 would listen to him. His wife and his relatives assailed 
 him with reproaches ; the superior authorities and persons 
 of wealth and distinction treated him in their way as a vision- 
 ary or enthusiast; while others openly ridiculed his plans, 
 Tn 1715 he deemed it necessary to attempt a vindication 
 of himself against all these calumnies and misconceptions. 
 As soon as he had once gained the assent of his wife 
 to his bold plan, things went on more smoothly. He 
 then ceased to prepare petitions and memorials, re- 
 signed his office, hastened to Copenhagen, pleaded his 
 cause in person, and at length gained his point so far that 
 a vessel was equipped, and he was placed at the head of 
 a little colony, with the appointment of missionary to 
 Greenland. On the the 2d of May, 1721, he embarked 
 with his wife and four young children, overjoyed at having 
 thus attained, after ten years' perseverance, the object of 
 bis wishes. 
 
 With the Danes who accompanied him he founded on 
 the west coast the settlement of Godhaab ; dwelt among 
 the Savages who were at first shy of the new colonists ; 
 gained their mistrustful hearts ; learned, with his children, 
 their language ; endured all privations with them ; tra- 
 versed amid many perils this region of rocks and ice in 
 various directions ; caused search to be commenced for 
 minerals, in hopes of rendering the country of importance 
 to the Danes, and attempts to be made to grow corn, to 
 secure those who had come with him from danger of famine. 
 All the paina that were taken to obtain a permanent foot* 
 ing in this inhospitable land, seemed, however, to be thrown 
 away. The colonists were beset at once by cold, hunger, 
 and the treachery of the natives. It was only now and 
 then that Egede gained over individuals to Christianity ; 
 and in the space often years he baptized but one hundred 
 and fifty children. The Danish government began to be 
 tired of the expense, and in 1 73 1 King Christian VI. re- 
 called the colonists. All were disheartened excepting 
 Rgede. With his family and ten seamen, for whom there 
 vas not room in the ships sent to convey the people back 
 
QBEENLAND. 176 
 
 10 Denmark, he remained in Greenland. There he waited 
 two years longer. His fortitude triumphed. 
 
 Not only did the king restore the Greenland trade, and 
 afford fresh support to the mission, but three new preachers 
 of salvation, Matthew, David, and Christian Stach, sent by 
 the Brethren's Congregation at Herrnhut, arrived at once. 
 This was in the year 1733. They were soon joined by 
 several others. They founded the settlement of New 
 Herrnhut near Godhaab ; and subsequently, as their labours 
 became more prosperous, a second mission, named Lich- 
 tenfels, in 1758, that they might have access to the more 
 remote Savages. Thus did they, with a courage undaunted 
 by hardships, prosecute the sacred work begun by Egede. 
 even after that venerable man had in 1736 returned to Co- 
 penhagen, sick and infirm, for the benefit of his health, for 
 the better education of his children, and for the purpose oi 
 serving more effectually the interests of the mission.* 
 
 With the conversion of the Savages commenced their ci- 
 vilization. They became habituated to permanent abodes, 
 So early as the year 1762, four hundred and seventeen 
 Greenlanders dwelt together at New Herrnhut and about 
 one hundred and seventy at Lichtenfels. To these settle- 
 ments were added Lichtenau in 1774, and Friedrichsfeld 
 in 1824, and in 1825 the number of Christian Greenland- 
 ers resident at the three former places amounted to about 
 one thousand four hundred persons. i\ear these missions 
 and Godhaab have been formed several Danish establish- 
 ments, which are gradually acquiring more and more influ- 
 ence in softening the rude manners of the natives. Edi- 
 fying works, and in 1799 the Bible, were translated for the 
 converts into their mother tongue, and printed at Copen- 
 hagen, with Roman letters. The missionaries have also 
 founded schools, that none of the baptized children maj 
 grow up without instruction. 
 
 Since the arrival of Hans Egede a century has now 
 elapsed. Much has been accomplished, but yet much less 
 ihan might have been expected from the efforts of a hun- 
 dred years. Nature opposes great obstacles, and not less 
 the inveterate prejudice of the Greenlanders against fo- 
 
 * He died ia 175B at Slubbrfiloblng, in the island of Falster. 
 
$76 SUHVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 reigners, and their adherence to the notions of their ances-' 
 Cors. In later times too the work of conversion has been- 
 carried on with less zeal than at first. 
 
 It requires no ordinary perseverance to carry the light of 
 divine revelation to the heathen, to'disregard all considera- 
 tions, and to pass one's life in those dreary deserts of rocks 
 and snow, where no verdure is to be seen except at the 
 little towns and villages : for while the whole country is 
 bare and barren, the tops and sides of the houses are over- 
 grown with grass and scurvy-grass ; and the surrounding 
 sand, fertilized for many years by the blood and blubber 
 of seals, produces the finest herbage. In the distance 
 smoke extinct volcanoes, and the vast lofty ice-fields emit 
 a radiance somewhat resembling the aurora borealis and 
 called the ice-blink. At the foot of the mountains rise, in 
 the place of forests, series of masses of ice full of holes and 
 clefts, of singular forms, sometimes like churches adorned 
 with steeples, sometimes like pillars, arches, ruined pal- 
 aces, semi-transparent, in the sun emitting rays of a pale 
 green and silver colour from the snow, and blue from the 
 clear ice. In severe winters water freezes on the fire be-' 
 fore it gets warm and boils ; and spirit of wine frequently 
 becomes as thick as frozen oil. The ground is not tho- 
 roughly thawed till June ; but in the longest days the sun 
 melts even the pitch about the ships. At this season float- 
 ing ice-bergs dance in the sea about the coasts. The Eu- 
 ropeans raise in their gardens salad, cabbage, leeks, and 
 radishes ; but all vegetables are small, and even the turnips 
 seldom grow to a larger size than a pigeon's egg. Mosses., 
 fungi, and lichens, alone thrive on the unproductive rocks, 
 and a few species of grasses in the sheltered valleys ; while 
 stunted fruit-bearing shrubs, dwarf birches, low alders, and 
 service-trees, delight the eye by their appearance in the 
 fiords of the southern parts of the country alone. ' 
 
 It is impossible to specify the number of inhabitants 
 living dispersed in these as yet too imperfectly known soli- 
 tudes. You may travel for days together without seeing a 
 human creature. According to the reports of navigators, 
 there were, anterior to the year 1730, about thirty thousand 
 inhabitants on that part of the west coast where the missions 
 and (lis Danish settlements are now situated. By 174C 
 
GREENLAND. 1T3 
 
 this number had decreased one-third. Crantz computed 
 the total population of the west coast in 1762 at about ten 
 thousand only. In the year 1805 there were numbered 
 but six thousand and forty-six in the environs of the 
 Danish settlements. Crantz, however, knew from the 
 statements of the Greenlanders that, so high as the seventy 
 eighth degree, the country was inhabited by people who 
 subsisted upon fish, white bears, and eider-fowl. The Bri- 
 tish discovery ships, sent out towards the north pole, actu- 
 ally found in 1818, between the seventy-sixth and seventy- 
 eighth degree, a solitary tribe of Esquimaux, who consider- 
 ed the world around them as one interminable glacier and 
 themselves as the whole human race, and who are report- 
 ed to have no conception of the existence of a Supreme 
 Being. 
 
 The last assertion, however, was rather too precipitate. 
 The English staid much too short a time among these 
 people and were too ignorant of their language to be able 
 to form any judgment respecting their abstract ideas. F5r, 
 among all the nations and tribes on the face of the globe, 
 not one has yet been discovered, which, upon more intimate 
 acquaintance, had not, so soon as it had constructed a 
 language for itself, combined with the first notions of ex- 
 istence, the idea also of a superior unknown power. God 
 hath revealed himself in the universal feelings of all minds. 
 The natives of West Greenland too were at first supposed 
 to have no conception of a Deity; but the deeper Europeans 
 penetrated, by the acquisition of their language, and by a 
 longer intercourse with them, into the secrets of their souls, 
 the more the germs of religion were there developed to the 
 eye of the observer. They talk of superior and inferior 
 spirits. They know of the creative breath of Pirksoma — 
 " him who is above"— of Torngarsuk, a good spirit sub- 
 ordinate to him, the oracle of their angekoks^ or priests, 
 who dwells in subterranean realms of bliss ; of an evil 
 spirit who resides at the bottom of the sea, and whose 
 house is guarded by ferocious seals, which stand erect ; 
 of the continued existence of their souls, tarngeks — from 
 the very affinity of which name with that of the good spirit, 
 Torngarsuk, much may be inferred — after the dissolution 
 of the body. But to the great spirit Torngarsuk they pay 
 neither reverence nor service, because, as Crantz expresses 
 
178 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 it, " they consider him as much too beneficent to desire to 
 be propitiated or bribed." 
 
 Respecting the state of the Christian missions in south 
 and west Greenland of late years we know but little. So 
 much, however, we know, that these countries need a more 
 considerable number of devoted missionaries from Europe 
 — in 1792 there were but five — and that the congregations 
 of the United Brethren on these coasts consist of about one 
 thousand souls. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MISSIONS IN LABRADOR — rAGANISM IN THE EXTREME 
 NORTH OF AMERICA. 
 
 Whatever lives and breathes at the yet undiscovered 
 north pole of our globe is still a mystery. The northern- 
 most region with which we are acquainted is a dreary 
 world of rocky islands, called Spitzbergen, where white 
 bears, foxes, and reindeer, nevertheless, find some food, 
 and snow and ice-birds flutter about the bare crags. But 
 here, where winter transforms the ocean about the islands 
 into an endless plain of ice, where the longest night lasts 
 five months, and where, on the other hand, the heat of 
 summer is sometimes intolerable, dwell but a few Russian 
 settlers for the sake of the fishery. 
 
 Under somewhat more southern latitudes, about Hud- 
 son's Bay, where indeed the climate is still severe, where 
 the soil is rendered unfit for cultivation by an almost ten 
 months' winter, but yet stunted varieties of the pine rear 
 their heads above the snow, and where the species of 
 animals are more numerous, the human race also is seen 
 more numerously diffused. These people are allied to the 
 Greenlanders in their manners, language, and way of 
 thinking. 
 
 The inhabitants of the rude and extensive country of 
 Labrador call themselves, like the Greenlanders, Karalits, 
 or Keralrs, (men) and the Europeans Kablnnaits, Tht 
 
lABBADOB. 170 
 
 Esquimaux, the Skrallings of Greenland, were no doubl 
 originally but tribes cast out and persecuted by them. 
 The English have long frequented these coasts for the sake 
 of trade, on account of their fish and furs. The Hudson's 
 Bay Company have several settlements and factories there 
 for the security of their commerce with the Savages. It 
 was not till 1764 that these parts were visited by Christian 
 missionaries, who, in this instance also, were Moravian 
 Brethren, and who boldly fixed their abode in the vicinity 
 of the factories. There they founded in 1771 their first 
 mission, Nain, where eight German missionaries dwelt 
 together to proclaim the word of God, and to ennoble half- 
 brutalized men. Subsequently, when they were joined by 
 more assistants from Europe, and chiefly from Germany, 
 they commenced in 1776 the new settlement of Okkak,. to 
 the north of Nain, under the fifty-eighth degree ; and still 
 later, in 1782, that of Hopedale to the southward. 
 
 Providence has blest the labours of these pious men. 
 Tn 1808 several hundred families of the Keraiis, civilized 
 and industrious, dwelt in affecting unity and devotion 
 around Nain, Okkak, and Hopedale. Here are held 
 pious offices for exalting the soul ; here are established 
 schools for the children of the long-neglected natives. Not 
 only are there many of the people who can read, but 
 many too find no difficulty in expressing their thoughts in 
 writing ; and the first three Gospels, translated into their 
 language, and printed at the cost of the British Bible 
 Society, were distributed in the autumn of 1814 among 
 their schools. 
 
 A far more numerous population than is found in the 
 environs of the missions animates the northern and 
 western coasts of Labrador. From those parts Esqui- 
 maux caravans have all along come from time to time to 
 the congregations of the Brethren and the British settle- 
 ments for the sake of traffic. This circumstance induced 
 Benjamin Kohlmester, one of the missionaries at Okkak, 
 to explore those countries in the spring of 1811. He 
 proceeded along the coast to Cape Chudleigh, under the 
 sixty first degree of latitude, and from this north point of 
 Labrador south-westward to Ungawa Bay. 
 
 He set out on this tour on the 19th of June, as soon as- 
 
180 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the bay of Okkak had become clear of ice. Accompa- 
 nied by four Esquimaux families and others, he coasted 
 between floating ice-bergs, and was frequently detained 
 by fields of ice. From the bare rocks here and there 
 thundered cataracts, descending from fifty to sixty feet 
 perpendicular, and spreading below into a cloud of vapour. 
 Eagles nestled on the summit of rocks, the green, red, 
 and yellow stone of which, displaying the most fantastic 
 shapes, seemed sometimes to represent colonnades, at 
 others Gothic castles and churches. They saw verdant 
 valleys, where the golden potentilla, tussilago, and arnica, 
 were in flower ; hills clothed to a considerable height 
 with low shrubs, dwarf birches and alders ; and an ash-gray 
 rock, emitting a yellowish-white vapour with a strong 
 sulphureous smell. This substance is so corrosive, that a 
 drop of it falling on tinned iron consumed the metal in a 
 few minutes. Farther northward, in the country of Ser- 
 liarutsi, they discovered ruins of ancient Greenland settle- 
 ments, walls, and graves, about which the tradition of the 
 passage of the Keralis, who fled from Canada and 
 Labrador to the north (to Greenland), is still current 
 among the Esquimaux. They were every where received 
 with surprise and hospitality by the tribes of savages who 
 had never till then beheld a European. 
 
 An attempt has very recently been commenced by the 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society to found a permanent 
 mission on the west coast of Labrador to the south of the 
 settlements of the United Brethren 
 
 New Wales, on the west side of Hudson's Bay, ex- 
 tending to the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, is a still 
 wilder country than Labrador ; it is inhabited by Esqui- 
 maux, who subsist by hunting and fishing, and some 
 hundreds of Europeans in the service of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company. But no apostle of Christ has yet had the 
 courage to penetrate hither, or into the immense plains, 
 mountains, and forests, which, situated to the north of 
 Canada, are the abodes of the North Indians, the Copper 
 Indians, the Athapuwskows, the Nathanas, the Chippe- 
 ways, and other nomadic tribes. Daring fur-traders alone 
 have ventured from time to time into these regions, un- 
 known to the rest of U»e world, except from the travels of 
 
RED RIVER COLONY. 181 
 
 Mackenzie, performed for the purpose of discovery, from 
 Montreal to the Icy Ocean and the South Sea. 
 
 if the Father of the Universe revealed by Jesus is nor 
 known in these northern wilds of America, they never- 
 theless resound the praise of the invisible " Great Spirit,' 
 as he is called by the Savages. Their household gods too 
 arc dear to their simple minds. They are not ignorant 
 of the immortality of their souls. The Chippeways tell of 
 a delicious island, to which departed spirits are conveyed. 
 They too have priests and high-priests, sacrifices, and 
 religious rites. Our acquaintance, however, with the 
 religious conceptions of the tribes which occupy the 
 extreme north of America, from Baffin's and Hudson's 
 Bay to Cook's and Behnng's Straits, and Nootka Sound, 
 is exceedingly imperfect : nay, we scarcely yet know the 
 names of all these tribes. They timidly withdraw, as the 
 Europeans extend their settlements, from both the east 
 and west coast of this continent into the unexplored 
 interior. Here, in the wilds of the primitive forests to 
 the southward, or in the vast Highlands where, from the 
 everlasting snows of inaccessible mountains, the Missouri. 
 Mackenzie, Nelson, Columbia, and other rivers, pursue 
 their course to Hudson's Bay, the South Sea, and the 
 icebound North ; in those almost endless plains, where 
 the soil has scarcely sufficient depth for the nourishment 
 of plants, and .man and his reindeer are forced to be 
 content with the short crisped moss of the rocky desert : — 
 here is the secure retreat of the aboriginal natives of 
 America. 
 
 An attempt has indeed very recently been made by the 
 < Ihurch Missionary Society to carry the Gospel into these 
 wilds, in the establishment of a mission at the colony of 
 the Hudson's Bay Company, on the Red River, in 1820 
 The Rev. Mr. West, who then proceeded to that place as 
 chaplain to the Company, was appointed to superintend 
 this mission, the sphere of which is co-extensive with the 
 countries over which the Hudson's Bay Company hav« 
 trading establishments, stretching from Canada to the 
 Pacific Ocean, and as far northward as has hitherto beer: 
 explored. No estimate has yei been tbrmpd of the number 
 of Indians inhabiting these immense countries ; but a 
 16 
 
182 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 promising commencement has been made among tliem k> 
 the establishment of schools at the Red River colony, and 
 in the erection of churches in wilds where sabbath-bell 
 had never yet tolled since the creation. 
 
 The accounts from this quarter, in the spring of 1827, 
 will show what powerful natural obstacles the mission* 
 aries have here to contend with. 
 
 " News of the most deplorable kind," writes one of the 
 missionaries in February, " arrives daily from the plain.'-. 
 The Canadian freemen have for some time been subsisting 
 on their leather tents, parchment windows, buffalo robes, 
 doe shoes, &c. They have devoured all the carcasses of 
 horses, dogs, and other animals, that have died since the 
 commencement of winter : it is further stated that the 
 dead bodies of those who have perished have been ealen 
 by their surviving companions. " The distress of these 
 people induced the missionaries to set on foot a contribu- 
 tion among the Protestants for their relief. 
 
 In April we have the following report from the same 
 writer : — " A striking combination of circumstances tends 
 at present to throw a gloom over the temporal interests of 
 this colony. The failure of the buffalo in the hunting- 
 grounds commenced the distress ; since that time the 
 season has exceeded both in duration a'nd severity any 
 former instance of the kind within the memory of the 
 oldest inhabitant. The settlers have for a long time been 
 obliged to support their cattle entirely on wheat and 
 barley, and the consumption has been so great as to lead 
 me to apprehend a scarcity of seed for the soil. The 
 season is getting so late as to render it probable that no 
 wheat crops at all can be expected, and should any thing 
 occur to prevent the prosperity of barley and potatoes, we 
 shall be threatened with a famine." 
 
 The distress occasioned by the severity of the weathi i 
 was aggravated by a destructive inundation, from the be- 
 ginning of May to the middle of June, in the course oi 
 which nearly every house, excepting the dwellings, school- 
 houses, and churches of the missionaries, was swept away, 
 and the country laid under water as far as the eye could 
 reach. The missionaries, in common with the rest of the 
 .inhabitants, were obliged for about a month to leave their 
 ^dwellings and reside in tents pitched on elevated ground 
 
BED itivmt colokv. 183 
 
 The Russians, crossing over from the north of Asia to 
 the west ;o \sts of America, are spreading along them more 
 and more and in greater, number. Their fur-traders and 
 hunters, cruel and rapacious, drive back with rud:: violence 
 the affrighted Savages. Not a thought of converting or 
 civilizing the heathen ever enters the mind of any officer 
 of the Russian American Company. On the peninsula of 
 Alashka, the inhabitants of winch, during the last century, 
 were computed at sixty thousand, there were seen in 18U9 
 but a few hundred. Since the Russians founded in 1804 
 their settlement of New Archangel, the hunted tutives have 
 sought refuge in remote regions beyond the reach of Euro- 
 peans. 
 
 It needs not indeed the exercise of inhumanities towards 
 the Indians to drive them from the neighbourhood of 
 Europeans. Simple children of nature, they observe with 
 horror the superiority and effects of European arts and 
 vices. They shrink from a religion, preached to then* by 
 men who boast of being sure of heaven after death, though 
 during their lives they turn the world into a hell. The 
 primitive American stedfastly prefers the mode of life of 
 his ancestors to the indulgences introduced by strangers, 
 and the independence of Nature to the slavery or social 
 ordinances and permanent abodes. Thus, in 1799, 
 Mackenzie saw a whole colony of Iroquois emigrate to the 
 Saskatchiwine river, though thr;y had from childhood dwelt 
 nine English miles from Montreal, lived among Romish 
 missionaries, and been instructed bv them. 
 
ii)4 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SURVEY OF THE TU CAN AD AS APTONISHING PROGRESf 
 
 OF RELIGION AND OF iUZATlON AMONG THE SAVAGE 
 TRIBES IN AND T EAR Till UNITED STATES AND THE 
 Sl'AMSH TERRITORIES IN NORTH AMER'CA. 
 
 In the west ar>d north of Canada, to the Asiatic Ocean 
 and the ley Sea, am. . >uthward to the uncertain limits 
 of the United States and the Mexican territory, over an 
 area of more tn; n two u.lliofi fiv*. nundr^d th-usand square 
 miies, an area equal o hat of all Europe the ancient un- 
 broke:i paganism rdig • s d a variety of forms. As vet we 
 scarcely know th< navnes of all the nations by which it is 
 inhabited, to say i oihmg oi their religions notions. Even 
 in the terr tories of the United Suto* and in the British 
 and Spanish possession^ in North America, there dwell 
 man; independent Indian tribes woo worship fetishes and 
 know nothing of the purer ievela*ions of «^od. It is only 
 along- the sea-coas Is, in the towns, villages, and settlements 
 of European colonists, * 5 iat the Christian religion prevails. 
 Attempts have, however, been, made, troio tiaw to time 
 and at different points, wirh varions su'-e^ss. to communi- 
 cate tiie sa, *ed light of the Gospel to the savage tribes. 
 
 In Upper Oanada, to the south west of the Utuwa river, 
 where the English episcopal church predominates, dwell 
 also some Quakers, Mennonites, Moravians, ar;d Hunkers, 
 especially in the district of Kingston. The Protectants in 
 this quarter have for many years past d<>ne much for the 
 religious and moral cultivation of the neighbouring Indian 
 hordes. The S ociety for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 has missions of its own for the conversion of the Mohawks, 
 both at Kingston ao'l at the town of \iagara on the river 
 of that name. The Moravian Brethren have i ;veral such 
 institutions, and by their missionaries Lucy have already 
 founded whole colonies of Christian Indians, who dwell 
 together in fraternal harmony, engaged in agriculture, 
 breeding cattle, weaving, the preparation of sugar from 
 maple juice, and other occupations, 
 
United states of north America. 135 
 
 In Lower Canada, formerly * French colony, the Catho- 
 lic church prevails. Since the English have become 
 
 musters of the country, the clergy seem to have fallen off 
 both in point of education and in their zeal for the conver- 
 sion of the heathen. " The priests in Canada," says the 
 Duke de Rochefoucault-Liancourt in his Travels, '• are 
 precisely what they are in general among us and every where 
 else, subtle, ambitious, supporters of arbitrary power, when 
 it is disposed to increase their influence and wealth, and 
 will not allow either freedom of thought or independence 
 of judgment, 'i he majority of tiie priesthood can do no 
 more than read an ! write, and are ignorant and super- 
 stitious in the highest degree." 
 
 The French revolution was beneficial to these coun- 
 tries, inasmuch as it caused many emigrant priests to set- 
 tle there ; and the piety of these men, heightened by suf- 
 ferings, and their talents, acquired by a superior education, 
 furnished a pattern to the others. By their means too the 
 nearly extinct spirit for the diffusion of Christianity was 
 revived. 
 
 The bishop of Quebec has under him one hundred and 
 twenty-nine parish priests and missionaries. The latter 
 may be considered as the ministers of the Christian Huron 
 villages on the North shore of Lake Lrie, of the great 
 Indian colony of Arbre Croche, and of other Indian set- 
 tlements, which, as foundations of former times, they 
 rather keep up than increase. 
 
 In the United States of North America infinitely greater 
 zeal is manifested for the conversion and civilization of 
 the Savages. Here we find an evident rivalry of all reli- 
 gions and all churches to diffuse the knowledge and wor- 
 ship of God.. This would perhaps be least expected in a 
 federal state, whither thousands seem to repair merely fot 
 the sake of a subsistence or to enjoy civil liberty, and 
 where general toleration is the fundamental principle oi 
 most of the constitutions — a principle which is condemned. 
 as might be expected, by the great majority of the Euro- 
 pean clergy. For the latter, unmoved by the convictions 
 of plain human reason, which teaches that with so many 
 degrees of national civilization one uniform mode of divine 
 worship is impracticable; unmoved bv the picture of pas' 
 16* 
 
180 SUKVEY OF CHRISTlANlTr. 
 
 ages ; unmoved by the example of the merciful God, who- 
 is the father of the suckling as well as of the hoary philo- 
 sopher, of the heathen in the wilderness as well as of the 
 disciple of Jesus ; unmoved by the blime doctrine oi 
 Christ himself and his apostles, that whoever does right 
 and loves God is agreeable to him condemn in their 
 proud orthodoxy all who are not of their own opinion, 
 and perceive in a liberal indulgence of religious convic- 
 tions merely a sinful indifference to rei'gion itself. 
 
 The spirit of the constitution of the North American 
 States is a truly great, a truly Christian, spirit, because it. 
 is most consonant with the arrangements of Nature : it 
 assumes no insolent authority over the conscience ; i f 
 embraces with equal affection men of all persuasions. 
 Whoever acknowledges the true God, consequently the 
 Jew, and even the Muhamedan, has the free enjoyment 
 of civil rights in the greater part of these States ; whoever 
 is a Christian, no matter to what denomination he belongs, 
 is admissible to any office Thus abou seventy different 
 sorts of Christian churches flourish in peace beside one ano- 
 ther; and each church, each congregation, pajs the minis- 
 ters whom it chooses for itself. Catholics spread themselves 
 ty the side of Protestants ; and the fanatio Trappists, like 
 the fanatic Shakers, here find an undisturbed abode 
 Here insensate religious animosities disapj ar. It is de- 
 lightful to see Protestants contributing to the erection oi 
 Catholic churches, and on the other hand Catholic parents, 
 •or want of priests of their own communion, carrying th^ir 
 new-born infants to Protestant ministers to be baptized 
 according to the Romish ritual. Mere the thunders of 
 the Vatican, which still frequently terrify European sove- 
 reigns., are unknown ; here arc no unchristian -prohibitions 
 igainst marriages between persons of different churches 
 .!<°re rule God and the laws, not priests, not concordats, not 
 in elect church, which makes citizens of a different per 
 suasion either outcasts or step-children of the State. 
 
 The European emigrants who, mourning over the de- 
 fects of their ancient countries, transport themselves across 
 ocean to the New World, are in general more reli- 
 giously disposed by their lot than those who remain behind 
 heir accustomed sphere. They enter a strange land. 
 
UNITED STATES OP NORTH AMERICA. 187 
 
 where they have no friend but their God, and they cling 
 to him with closer attachment than ever. Many fathers 
 if) their solitudes baptize their children themselves ; many 
 mutually administer the holy communion to each »ther, 
 as the disciple^ of Jesus did after he had quitted thcrn. 
 Religion has always existed before the priesthood. 
 
 Missionaries of the most diverse sects repair preaching 1 
 to the wilds, the primitive abodes of the savages, unsoli- 
 cited, unpaid: they have penetrated fir beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio, and have founded 
 congregations of converted heathen. In all the cities and 
 states there are numerous Missionary Societies, especially 
 among the Protestants. The " Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel among the Heathen" which held its 
 first meeting at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, on the 2 1st 
 of September, 1787, and was a few months later legally 
 acknowledged by that state, lias been particularly active. 
 Not content to confine their attention to the neighbouring 
 Indian tribes, the Americans established in 1812 a u Soci- 
 ety for Foreign Missions*'' which has sent out messengers 
 of salvation to the islands of East and South India. With 
 me number of foreign settlers and of the rapidly rising 
 cities, towns, and colonies, the zeal for the diffusion of 
 Christianity far and near increases also. The circulation 
 of the Sacred Scriptures in all languages contributes noia 
 little to encourage this zeal, hi 1827 there were in the 
 United States five hundred and seventy-eight Bible Socie- 
 ties : and their number and activity in all parts continue 
 to augment, even among the Catholics themselves, in spite 
 of the Pope's Bull. Among these laudable associations., 
 ;!i>rc is even a " Bible Society for Africa," which w^s es 1 
 tablishtfd at Philadelphia in 1816. 
 
 From an official report, drawn up by the Rc\gpt)r, 
 Morse, we learn that tiie number of the Indians within 
 the territories of the United States amounts to no more 
 th.iri 47 1 ,000. These may be considered as forming three 
 grand divisions, namely, those residing eastward of the 
 Mississippi, to the number of 120,000 ; between the Mis- 
 sissippi and the Rocky Mountains 180,000; and westward 
 of the Rocky Mountains 171,000. The whole number 
 af tribes and branches dispersed over this vast tract of 
 
138 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 country is about two hundred and sixty, of which about 
 seventy are in the first, division, ninety in the second, and 
 one hundred in the third. Some of these tribes are very 
 small : one lias dwindled down to fifteen persons, while 
 the Choctaws amount to 25,000, the Creeks to 20,000 
 and the Cherokees to 11,000. The proportion of war- 
 riors to the whole number of souls is about one to five, 
 except in the tribes which dwell among the Whites, where 
 the proportion is as one to three. 
 
 Of the number of the aborigines of the North American 
 continent living to the southward of the territory of the 
 United States, and of those who range the boundless 
 plains to the north and north-west, no estimate has yet 
 been formed. 
 
 Many of the small tribes of the Creeks, Delaware?. 
 Iroquois, Hurons, &c, are already converted to the Chris- 
 tian faith, and to the missions of the United Brethren this 
 glorious result is chiefly owing. Together with a holy 
 faith many of these tribes have adopted milder manners, 
 built permanent settlements, and embraced more useful 
 occupations. Thus to the Quakers of New-York belongs 
 the credit of having first made the words of eternal love 
 and the civilization of polished nations dear to the tribe of 
 the Onondagos. These once ferocious Savages, now 
 brethren of the European settlers, cultivate their extensive 
 fields in pe'ace, pasture their numerous herds at the foot 
 of the Alleghany Mountains, and make sugar, soap, and 
 many sorts of European stufis. 
 
 The name of the Iroquois is still proverbial in Europe 
 on account of their ancient barbarity. But they are 
 savages no longer ; they have learned to know the Eternal 
 Father of the Universe through Jesus. To the west of 
 Carofcna are to be seen many of their villages, some ol 
 them neatly built. Many hundreds of persons of Euro- 
 pean extraction dwell quietly among them and are partly 
 married to Iroquois women. In their towns they have 
 public buildings, churches, and artisans. Their school- 
 arid school-hooks are highly commended. The Lancas- 
 trian mode of instruction is general among them. It is 
 in truth one of the most remarkable signs of the times 
 that public instruction is more zealously encouraged among 
 
UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMEUICA. 18!* 
 
 Hie Iroquois than in many countries of Europe., where 
 perfidious or prejudice) counsellors of princes, a nobility 
 fond of power, or a priesthood anxious to keep the people 
 in darkness, would rather sulfur the schools for the lower 
 classes to crumble in ruin, and oppose to the utmost of 
 their power the diffusion of knowledge among the pea- 
 santry, that they may retain under their yoke a ra: v e of 
 human brutes, from whose ignorance they have no oppo- 
 sition to fear. What friend of humanity is there whose 
 heart does not thrill to its utmost recesses at such a sight ! 
 The Iroquois are regularly advancing in civilization. 
 Their most common occupations, besides those of agri- 
 culture, horticulture, and the breeding of cattle, are spin- 
 ning and weaving ; be they have also saltpetre-works, 
 gunpowder- mills, blacksmiths, and even gold and silver- 
 smiths. 
 
 The civilizat'on « f these and other sa*'age tribes is 
 one of ihe most laudable acts of the government of 
 the North American States. On the Five Nations, as 
 they are called, it expends annually the sum of ten thou- 
 sand dollars f »r the pur base of agricultural implements 
 and tools ofal 1 kinds. The Brethren's congregations, the 
 Methodists, the Baptis -. and the Qu; !.ers, particularly 
 distinguish themselves, in concert with the American 
 Board of Miss : ons. by their ze:d tor diminishing the bar- 
 barism of the fborigin xl inhabitants of America. The 
 Mohawks, theOneidas, and others, already have, like the 
 Iroquois, schools for teaching writing, reading, arithmetic, 
 &.e. The tow n of Tumssassa, belonging to the Seneca- 
 Indians near the Alleghany river, consists chiefly of houses 
 with : wo floors, and has an elegant < hurch. The Huron* 
 cultivate the land and t:a-:e in corn. 
 
 liespectmg tiie present .^tate of the Cherokee Indians, 
 a public address delivered by one of the tribe in the h.rst 
 Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, i May Ibid, and 
 siiice ; ubhshed, furnishes highly inter, s inir information. 
 
 The territories of this nation, lying within the chartered 
 limits of the states of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama, 
 extend about two hundred mile- in length from west to 
 ca*t and one hundred and twenty in oreadth. The popu- 
 lation, which has been for some y< ars past on the increase, 
 has been also, according to the authority above mentioned. 
 
190 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 making rapid strides in civilization. As the chase ha£ 
 become inadequate to their subsistence, they have been 
 obliged to resort to agriculture am! the breeding of cattle ; 
 and the improvement thus commenced has been accelerated 
 by the invention of letters to express the Cherokee words, 
 the translation of the New Testament into that language, 
 and the organization of a regular government. The 
 nation, we are told, is divided into eight districts, each 
 having its established court of justice, wi-ere disputed cases 
 are decided by a jury, with proper officers to execute their 
 decisions. The legislative authority is vested in a general 
 court composed of the national committee and council, the 
 former consisting of thirteen members, the latter of thirty- 
 two besides the speaker ; and the executive power is vested 
 in two principal chiefs, who hold their office during good 
 behaviour, and sanction the decisions of the legislative 
 council. 
 
 Polygamy is abolished and female honour protected by 
 law. The sabbath is respected by the council during 
 session. The mechanicai arts are encouraged. The 
 pnetice of putting aged persons to death for witchcraft is 
 abolished, and murder is now a crime against the State. 
 
 Such is the picture drawn by a member of the Cherokee 
 nation ; u and," say the conductors of the .North American 
 Review, from whose pages these particulars are extracted, 
 " we have no doubt of their truth." 
 
 The missionary establishments for the education of In- 
 dian vouth in the United States, founded and supported by 
 voluntary contributions, and aided by an annual appro* 
 priation from the national treasury, open encouraging 
 prospects. Of these establishments there are forty-one in 
 operation on the frontiers of the United States. We know 
 not how many pupils they contain, but the expenditure, 
 which in 1824 was 191,000 dollars, in 1825 exceeded 
 202,000. When it is considered that the value of their 
 own agricultural products, and the labour of their teachers, 
 artisans, and others, which is wholly gratuitous, constitute 
 no part of this amount, some conception may be formed ol 
 the value of these eleemosynary foundations. The children 
 of both sexes are here fed, clothed, and taught, and pre 
 pared by regular discipline for those duties, which subse- 
 quent events may probably call them to perform. 
 
UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 191 
 
 Another plan, proposed for meliorating the condition ol 
 the North American Indians, and preserving them from 
 farther decline and eventual extinction, is the scheme fur 
 removing them to the country westward of the Mississippi, 
 and there establishing them in a permanent residence. 
 This proposition was submitted by the President to Con- 
 gress, two years ago, but the public opinion respecting its 
 practicability and consequences is yet unsettled. 
 
 The missions of the French, Spaniards, and Portuguese 
 in America and other ports of the world, supported for 
 centuries at an immense expense, can scarcely boast such 
 rapid and permanent effects as these. The power of free- 
 will piety and the pure love of what is good is always 
 greater than that of constraint and selfish secondary 
 motives, which but too often discovered themselves in 
 these missions. The force of moral convictions is more 
 binding than that of compulsory habit. 
 
 The Fndian nations of North America are for the res! 
 not less averse than others to exchange their mode of life 
 and religion for those of Europeans. For liberty and in- 
 dependence they cheerfully sacrifice life itself, and. despise 
 with savage pride the most excruciating torments. They 
 regard the Europeans it is true as a more industrious and 
 skilful, but at the same time a more unnatural and vicious 
 race of people. They continue to be mistrustful of stran- 
 gers, who have partly wrested from them the land of their 
 forefathers, contracted their hunting-grounds, and brought 
 such calamities upon them by the introduction of spirituous 
 liquors. 
 
 As a necessary consequence of the simplicity of their 
 wants, their language is poor in words ; but their under 
 standing is nevertheless neither so limited nor so dark as 
 Europeans were formerly led too precipitately to suppose. 
 Their dialects, mostly deficient in terms for temporal want?,. 
 arc not so meagre in expressions for what is not of this 
 world. They distinguish very accurately between the souk 
 as being immortal, and the body. " We can die, but not 
 cease to be," say they to the missionaries. " The grain of 
 maize dies too, when it is put into the ground, but it is not 
 dead for all that." From LoskiePs History of the Missions 
 of the United Brethren among the Delawares and Iroquois 
 
SURVEY OF CHRISTIAINITV. 
 
 wc know that their priests frequently insist on a virtuous 
 life as an essential condition for reaching the abode of the 
 good spirits after the death of the body. They present 
 offerings to the Manitous, good spirits, (tutelar angels) but 
 to these only, and not to the Great Spirit (God), who de- 
 sires no offerings and is too exalted for them. They be- 
 lieve also the existence of an evil spirit, without propitia- 
 ting him by offerings. To them dreams are divine revela- 
 tions, as they were in the primitive ages of European and 
 Asiatic society. 
 
 The Catholics as well as the Protestants in North Ameri- 
 ca have in our limes shared in the glory of propagating 
 Christianity and laboured in the cause with success. It is 
 not only from the United States, but also from the French 
 and Spanish missions in Louisiana and Mexico, that the 
 light of the Gospel has been shed on the forests and wilds 
 of the independent Indians. Thus, during the last fifty 
 years the Catholic faith lias been diffused among a great 
 part of the Iroquois, Hurons, and Illinois, also among the 
 J'oluxas, who dwell below Natchicoches, and among the 
 Adaizes, on the Mermentas, in whose country there is a 
 permanent Spanish mission. 
 
 There are also several Spanish missions on the river 
 Mrana, in the north of New Spain, not far from the posts 
 of San Antonio and San Saba, At each of them reside 
 seven or eight families of converted Indians, mostly cap- 
 tives taken by the Spaniards in war with the Savages, but 
 who are severely oppressed and obliged to labour for the 
 benefit of the missionaries. 
 
 Of the French Father liable acquired among the Hu- 
 rons and the Iroquois the reputation of an apostle by his 
 zeal and piety. In the year 1724 he was put to death bj 
 ilie savages. The Jesuits at Quebec were particularly 
 active : but the answer given in 1682 by the Iroquois am- 
 bassador to the French governor, M. de la Barde, when, 
 in the negotiation of a treaty of peace, the latter inquired 
 why the Iroquois particularly insisted that no Jesuits should 
 come among them, is remarkable. The honest Indian 
 replied: "Those men in their wide black frocks would 
 never think of coming to us if wc had no women and n<> 
 beavers. 1 ' 
 
SPANISH NORTH AMERICA. I9t 
 
 The war of independence, and the civil commotions in 
 Spanish America, which continued without interruption 
 for many years subsequently to 1810, have greatly para 
 lyzed the activity of the missions. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 <1*IRIT 01- CONVERSION IN SPANISH NORTH AMERICA — THE 
 CALIFOUMANS — Til LIU RELIGIOUS NOTIONS. 
 
 It is little more than three centuries since the discover) 
 of the New World. Before three centuries more elapse 
 the States of America will probably rival the most flourish 
 mgin the Old World : for there thrive religious ideas and 
 institutions, for the magnitude and simplicity of which the 
 latter seems to have no room left. 
 
 It is but about a hundred years since the death of William 
 Penn, the illustrious and pious Quaker, to whom Pennsyl- 
 vania owes its name, culture, and civilization. With him 
 commenced in North America, exclusively of the Spanish 
 possessions, a proper feeling, a genuine zeal for the con- 
 version and civilization of the Savages ; and now numerous 
 tribes enjoy the blessings of both. We have every reason 
 to believe that in another hundred years the greater part 
 of the North American tribes, who are still roving about in 
 • heir forests without instruction, will have permanent 
 abodes, towns, villages, agriculture, manufactures, am! 
 commerce. 
 
 William Penn realized in his colonies the grand idea oi 
 •omplcte religious liberty. His example operated on the 
 surrounding provinces. To this idea the vast continent of 
 the North American States owes its wonderfully rapid pros- 
 perity and the easy propagation of Christianity. The 
 latter has been effected, as in the early ages of our religion, 
 without force of arms, without the edicts of governments, 
 by the efforts of private individuals. 
 
 In the Spanish possessions a totally different spirit i • 
 17 
 
194 SUIiVEi OF CHBISTUMTY. 
 
 vailed. In these too now dwell numerous civilized Chris 
 tian Indians. They are the despised relics of the descend- 
 ants of those who, on the destruction of the ancient Mexi- 
 can monarchy, fell by the sword of the Spaniards, or fled 
 into the forests. Their vanquished forefathers, dragged 
 into slavery, adopted, under the terrors of Spanish cruelty. 
 the faith and laws of eternal love. Thus they are still 
 subordinate to the four archbishoprics of Mexico, Gauda- 
 laxara, Durango, and St. Louis Potosi. It is easy to form 
 some idea of Mexican Christianity, if we recollect with 
 what severity the Inquisition has hitherto ruled there. The 
 punishments of the Holy Office have ever been regarded 
 with reverenee as well pleasing to the Deity, and so lateh 
 as the year 1770 De Pages, the cjreumnavigator, found in 
 the Spanish catechism, under the head of " Works of Chris- 
 tian Love," the abominable injunction that those who go 
 astray must be punished and not conducted back into the 
 right way. 
 
 It is not surprising then that the neighbouring indepen- 
 dent Indian tribes are adverse to the God and the manners 
 of the Spaniards. The business of conversion proceeds 
 slowly, though the court of Madrid formerly allotted three 
 hundred thousand piastres a year for missions, but, indeed, 
 the money was in general very irregularly paid. — The sa- 
 cred work is carried on by monks, who repair to the wil- 
 derness from a sense of duty or by command of their supe- 
 riors ; not as is done in the rest of North America, by pious 
 volunteers, from spontaneous enthusiasm or ardent fondness 
 for the office. The former cannot go without being ac- 
 companied and guarded by soldiers ; the latter have no 
 other protection than God and their conscience. Had all 
 the EunSpean Christians gone forth to the Indians in the 
 same truly Christian spirit as Penn, the Quaker, I have no 
 doubt that Christianity would have been at this day the re- 
 ligion of most of the aboriginal Americans. Penn con- 
 cluded an honourable treaty with his savage neighbours. 
 This is the only treaty ever made between these people 
 and the Christians without being sworn to ; and it is also 
 the only one that has not been broken. The others were 
 negotiated in the true European style, sword in hand, bo* 
 Vmnly sworn to, and wantonly violated. 
 
SPANISH NORTII AMERICA 195 
 
 If the numerous missions in North American New 
 Spain, where among the Guyamas alone the Jesuits and 
 after them the Franciscans and other orders had twenty- 
 Ibur missions, have produced like benefit, the chief 
 obstacle consisted in the royal ordinance, directing that 
 the Indians should be compelled for five years after their 
 conversion to labour in agriculture and the mines. The 
 term indeed was subsequently shortened, but only in the 
 royal ordinance and not in reality. Hence the shyness of 
 the Savages. They consider the dedication to < Christianity 
 as a dedication to slavery. The insurrection of the Indians 
 in the province of Souora, in the year 1751, was the 
 result of this feeling It is conjectured that occasional 
 commotions of this kind were not disagreeable to the 
 American Spaniards ; since they afforded them pretext 
 for keeping the captives more rigorously to their servile 
 occupations. 
 
 Besides the attempts at conversion hitherto made in 
 the interior and partially on the frontiers of the vireroyalty 
 of New Spain in "JQrth America, as in the missions of the 
 provinces of Sonora, Cinaloa, Ostimuri, &,c. they have 
 likewise been prosecuted in the extensive peninsula of 
 California, but with fluctuating success. Of all the 
 Spanish missionary institutions in North America those 
 in California have hitherto been the most celebrated. 
 But the missions were rendered subservient less to a 
 sacked than to a political object, the subjugation of the 
 country to the Spanish crown by means of Christianity — 
 and this very circumstance must have operated as an im- 
 pediment to the undertaking, even to the present day. 
 
 After Hernando de Grixalva had, in 1534, discovered 
 the peninsula, which is nearly as large as Italy, exclusively 
 of its islands, the first thought of the Spaniards was to 
 make themselves masters of the country. Its chain of 
 bare mountains promised gold ; its southern coast yielded 
 pearls During a century and a half repeated expeditions 
 were sent thither, but to no purpose The savages, natu- 
 rally intelligent and of a martial disposition, and rendered 
 mistrustful by the first perfidies of the Spaniards, repelled 
 the invaders with a superior force. At the conclusion of 
 the seventeenth century, the Spanish court even relin- 
 quished in despair all idea of reducing California. 
 
196 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Still, however, that, idea was cherished in the bosom of 
 a few Jesuits, and it engaged more particularly the mind 
 of Father Eusebius Francis Kiihn, (called Kino by the 
 Spaniards,) a German, who, in order to treac] in ihe steps 
 of the apostles, resigned the professorship of astronomy 
 in the high school at Ingolstadt, and undertook the dan- 
 gerous office of a missionary in Spanish America.* As 
 such he resided in the province of Sonora, the northern- 
 most of the Spanish possessions, situated on the South 
 Sea, or rather on the Gulf of Calitornia. Encouraged by 
 iiim, Father Juan Maria de Saiva-Tierra proceeded in 
 1697 to California with some soldiers and Jesuits. The 
 prudence with which this pious and resolute man con- 
 ducted himself in the peninsula, whither Kiihn soon fok 
 lowed him, decided the fate of ihat country. Kiihn w!;o, 
 by his overland journey from Sonora to California, first 
 acquired a certainty that the latt' - was not an island, 
 founded the mission of Loretto. on the Red Ser., as the 
 gulf between America and California was now denomi- 
 nated, and fortified the place according to the rules of 
 military science. After a firm footing had been gained, 
 Spain sent succours in arms, troops, Jesuits, implements, 
 and conveniences of all kinds. One mission after another 
 was established. The new comers won the confidence of 
 the Savages by presents, and made themselves acquainted 
 with their language and manners. Among the Jesuits 
 themselves there appeared from time to tine men of extra- 
 ordinary fortitude, distinguished piety, and mild disposi- 
 tion, who won the hearts of the natives. Of the.^e Jr^ann 
 Anton Balthasar, a native of Lucerne, in Switzerland, 
 became particularly eminent : he was at length appointed 
 chief inspector of all the Spanish missions, and at his 
 death in 1763 he was Superior of his order in the vice- 
 royalty of Mexico. 
 
 With the gradual increase of the missions, the Jesuits 
 attended not only to the business of conversion, but also 
 to the foundation of their politico-commerrial empire in 
 California. They took possession of the country, to be 
 -ure. as a Spanish domain, but they reserved for themselves 
 
 * He died there in IT 10, 
 
SPANISH NORTH AMKR1CA. 197 
 
 Hie most important part of the advantages accruing from 
 it. With the consent of the court, the Order took upon 
 itself the administration of civil and ecclesiastical affairs - y 
 stationed soldiers, levied at its expense, in the forts which 
 it had erected for the protection of the missionaries and 
 converts, or for overawing the refractory ; appointed and 
 removed the officers and commanders of the armed force, 
 and likewise the civil officers and judges. The pearl- 
 fishery remained the king's ; but the profits arising from 
 agriculture and the commerce of the country belonged to 
 the Order. 
 
 The conversion of the natives meanwhile proceeded 
 but slowly. The Savages were displeased that strangers, 
 who came from a distant country to seek shelter in theirs, 
 should also wish to deprive them of the religion of their 
 ancestors. " If, 1 ' cried an Indian priest to a Spaniard, 
 " thy God hath given thee, as thou sayest, a finer country 
 than this, far away beyond the sea, why art thou not 
 content with it ? Return home !*" — One of tiie mission- 
 aries made the remark that wt a wise Providence hath 
 given to the savage nations mines of gold and to the 
 civilized nations — the thirst of gold. 1 '* So lately as the 
 year 18U4, tiie natives, especially of New California, were 
 attached to the independence of a nomadic iife. Here, 
 along the sea coast, reside several of their tribes ; first, 
 the Tuiban and Tabin, and farther eastward the Tsholban 
 and Tamlan. Fish, seals, muscles, and other marine pro- 
 ductions, likewise herbs, roots, and the produce of the 
 chase, arc their food. They have no permanent abodes, 
 nor any garment in summer but a narrow stripe round the 
 waist. In winter they wrap themselves in skins. Their 
 external appearance is disagreeable ; they are rude and 
 disgustingly filthy. The coarse hair of their heads stands 
 erect, and is sometimes adorned with the tail-feathers ol 
 the loriot or the common kite. It is even yet not "uncom- 
 mon for the converted Californian, longing after his former 
 home and independence, to abandon all the conveniences 
 of life and run away. When this is the case, the fugitive 
 Is immediately pursued ; and he rarely escapes, because, 
 
 * The nbove-raeutioned Anton Haithasar, in hid yet unpublished 
 rtpount of the mission in the year 1707. 
 
198 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY;. 
 
 owing to the hostilities prevailing between the different 
 tribes, he cannot join any other than his own. When 
 retaken lie is conducted back to the mission and severely 
 beaten, and a thick iron bar half a yard long is fastened 
 to one foot. This serves to prevent any further attempt 
 at escape, and as a warning to his comrades. 
 
 Among the Californians were found not the least vestige 
 of idolatry, no prayers, no festivals, no altars. They. 
 nevertheless, believe in an invisible God and Creator of all 
 things ; but a different mythology prevailed among dif- 
 ferent tribes. The Eduoos or Monkees, in the southern 
 part of the peninsula, related, for example, that Neparaya. 
 
 • the Almighty," though invisible and incorporeal, had a 
 virgin wife, named Anayicondl, and by her a son Quaay- 
 ayp, "man;" — that the latter descended from heaven 
 with many attendants and instructed the southern nations, 
 but was at last crowned with a crown of thorns and put 
 to death ; — that he still continues to bleed, is not subject 
 to corruption, and though, being dead, he cannot speak, 
 yet an owl speaks for him. 
 
 It is no wonder that the amazed Jesuits should imagine 
 that they discovered in these notions of the Californians 
 faint traces of Christian revelation. The tribes resident in 
 the central part of the peninsula likewise tell of an invisi- 
 ble almighty Gumongo, "king of spirits," who in ancient, 
 limes sent another spirit, Guyiaguai, into the world to 
 mankind. This messenger is said to have taught men to 
 sow pitahayas. The pitahaya is a fruit of the country, 
 about the size of a chesnut, prickly without, soft and juicy 
 within, which grows on the leafless branches of a tree, 
 and is the most common food of the inhabitants. With 
 these notions those of the northern Californians, especially 
 the Koschimers, have a close affinity. " He who is alive" 
 
 —they know of no other designation for the Supreme Be- 
 ing — has a son, " completion of the earth." God created 
 also invisible"' beings, who rebelled against him and are 
 
 ricked. 
 
 These traditions, at any rate, are remarkable from their 
 striking coincidence with many of the dogmas of tli( 
 
 < 'hristian churches and of the Buddha religions of die 
 
 South of Asia. The Jesuits found it a difficult task to 
 
SPANISH NORTH AMERICA. I9f« 
 
 ^mbat them, partly because the jealousy of the Califor 
 nian priests or sorcerers opposed the diffusion of Chris 
 tianity, partly because the language of the country lacked 
 expressions for man* Christian doctrines. When, there- 
 fore the first missionaries wished to make the native com- 
 prehend the position, " He is risen from the dead" — they 
 plunged a fly into water till it appeared to beliieless, then 
 laid it, strewed over with ashes, in the sun, where it pre- 
 sently revived. The Indians Manifested amazement, and 
 cried " Ibimuhueite ! lbimuhucitc /" The Fathers imme- 
 diately wrote down this word, ;md thenceforward employ- 
 ed it to express (he resurrection of the Messiah. From 
 this single fact we may inter what confused notions of the 
 Christian religion the Indians must have had, and under 
 similar circumstances must still entertain. 
 
 After the suppression >f the Order of the Jesuits, the 
 Californian missions, like .ill the others in Spanish North 
 America, were transit rreu to the Franciscans and Domini 
 <ar,s, who pros cuted the work commenced by their pre- 
 decessors in the -ame spirit ! -ut with scarcely so much zeal 
 and perseverance. In trie your 1820, there were in Old 
 California, or the southern half of the peninsula, besides 
 some forts, fifteen mission iry settlements along the coasts, 
 in which dwelt about two thousand converted Indians, who 
 were dependent on the clergy and employed in agriculture. 
 In New California, the more fertile northern part of the 
 peninsula, or rather in the tiact of coast above the penin- 
 sula, there are nineteen such missions, where reside about 
 fourteen thousand converted Indians. Six small forts, with 
 Spanish garrisons of a few hundred men, keep the peoph 
 in subjection. " All these missions," says Langsdorf, in 
 the Narrative of his Voyage round the World with Krusen- 
 stcrn, in the years 1803 to 1807, "have a superabundance 
 of cattle and other provisions of different kinds, and the 
 monks treat the new converts in general with such indul- 
 gence, kindness, and paternal care, that peace, harmony. 
 and obedience are the necessary results of their conduct- 
 Disobedience is usually punished with corporal chastise 
 merit ; and the military in the forts, or presidios, are em 
 ployed only on extraordinary occasions, sucl>as the main*. 
 <Wnce of the post and a? a. protection agairrst attack* 
 
£03 SURVEY OF CUMSTIAMTl . 
 
 According to the assurance of persons entitled to credit 
 the court of Spain is obliged to furnish one million piastres 
 per annum for the pay of the troops and ecclesiastics* in 
 both Californias — an expenditure from which it derives 
 no advantage, but to which is attached the merit of propa- 
 gating the Christian religion in those countries." 
 
 Defective as the religious notions of the new converts 
 must at first be, still the efforts of the Jesuits and their 
 successors are entitled to the grateful acknowledgments of 
 the world. At any rate, the roving natives have been ac- 
 customed by them to stationary abodes, to agricultural 
 and pastoral occupations, and to useful arts ; and even this 
 has not been accomplished without incurring the severest 
 sacrifices and manifold dangers. The way has thus been 
 opened and one step taken towards the ennobling of our 
 race. 
 
 Here, however, as in most of the missions of the monas- 
 tic orders, conversion was strictly speaking no more than 
 the communication of new habits not new convictions 
 The messengers of salvation came attended by soldiers : 
 if hostilities arise, the former act the part of mediators, 
 that they may win the love of the Savages in the same 
 proportion as the warriors excite their terror. They first 
 strive to gain individuals, and afterwards more, by kind 
 ness and by presents of knives, hatchets, mirrors, glass- 
 beads, &c. They prevail upon them to erect huts in the 
 vicinity of the mission, give them furniture and apparel, 
 teach them agriculture, the preparation of tallow, cloth- 
 ,\ caving, sawing timber, smith's and carpenter's work, and 
 all sorts of handicraft trades. They instruct them also in 
 the Spanish or French language, teach them to make the 
 sign of the cross, to kneel, pray, and tell their beads; and 
 administer baptism and give them Christian names as soon 
 as they conceive that they have duly impressed on the 
 memory of the Savages the doctrines of the Trinity, tlx 
 death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, hell and pur- 
 gatory, the power of the Virgin Mary, the efficacy ol 
 prayer, &c. 
 
 * In California -the yeaily salary of a missionary xru lire hundred 
 tiaateec 
 
SFAKISII NORTH AMERICA. 2U I 
 
 The Californians, though rude, are yet cunning am! 
 mercenary enough to take all this in good part. They 
 come by hundreds, especially when there is a dearth of 
 provisions affect great docility, submit to be baptized, and 
 afterwards run away in crowds, and this the good mission- 
 aries generally ascribe to tin manoeuvres of Satan. 1( 
 the friars iun bhortof presents, or are not in the humour 
 to make presents, or if the Savages cannot resist the desire 
 to po c .« :^s every thing, sudden attacks, murder, and war 
 are the i ohsequences. Hence Torts and garrisons are indis- 
 pensably requisite for Catholic missions; hence the main- 
 tenance of such missions is always expensive; and hence 
 it is necH sarv t • establish an ecclesiastical administration, 
 to which the ~ ; vil and military authorities are subordinate. 
 
 U was not thus, however that the Gospel was pro- 
 cl aimed by tno first disciples of Jesus, or by their first dis- 
 ciples and successors in the early ages of Christianity. 
 With God in their hearts, they went forth boldly and singly, 
 and preached and convinced and ha, lized, without aiming 
 at any advantage forthemselves or the superior authorities. 
 Jn *he Portuguese and Spanish missions, as soon as the 
 Savages have been somewhat tamed and habituated to 
 agt ultura! and other occupations, the priests fix the 
 amount of taxes which the converted Indians must pay to 
 them ariu to the sovereign : nay, the Christian Indians are 
 doomed, in obedience to their new religion, to labour for 
 a certain period in the royal mines! In truth, it was the 
 king lorn of monarehs and priests alone that they long 
 strove to extend, and afterwards the kingdom of God ; but 
 the latter only as a mean or pretext for the former, 
 
202 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS IN SOUTH 
 
 AMERICA EMPIKE OP Tilt: JESUITS ON THE URAGUAY 
 
 SLOW PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY OF LATE YEARS. 
 
 The general observations with which the last chapter 
 concludes may b^ applied to the greater part of the mis- 
 sions in South America. Every one is acquainted with 
 the spirit manifested by the Spanish and Portuguese 
 governments in t.ieir European dominions ; the antipathy 
 of their courts to the improvements introduced by art and 
 science in other countries ; their fear of more enlightened 
 views ; their partiality to the nobles ; tuen neglect of the 
 people and ot popdkr instruction ; the power of the priest- 
 hood in numberless churches and convents, ai .neti with the 
 terrors of the Inquisition ; the persecution of every friend 
 of truth and illuiniuation. tleiice it is easy to infer what 
 must have been tne administration of the American colo- 
 nies, which were treated only as gold-mines tor the court, 
 for the noble f itnihes who were to be provided with places, 
 and for the priests and friars. 
 
 Hence it was that, after the labour of centuries, the 
 Christian religion gamed but little ground amougthe Indian 
 tribes, throughout the whole extent of the late Spanish 
 dominions, from the isthmus 01 Panama to Terra del 
 Fuego. It was a considerable tune indeed before the 
 conquerors of the New World could be induced to regard 
 the Indians as human beings. What difficulty did the 
 philanthropic Las Casas find to demonstrate this! and 
 what scorn and hatred did this pious bishop of Chiapa 
 incur for his pains! Was not Pope i J aul ill. obliged, 
 in his bull of the 2d of June, 1537, to declare solemnly 
 tha* the Americans were really men, and consequently 
 capable of the Catholic faith and sacraments ? — veros 
 homines, Jidei caikolicce et sacramentorum capaces. 
 
 in the three late Spanish viceroyaiues of Aew Granada, 
 Peru, and La Plata, and in the captain-generalships of. 
 
SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 20 
 
 Caraccas, (Venezuela,) and Chile, there were certainty 
 many Indians, living as Christians in towns, mines, or vil- 
 lages of their own ; but by far the greater part of them 
 were relics of the conquered natives, descendants of the 
 first captives, mestizos of all sorts, sprung from intermar- 
 riages between Europeans, Indians, Negroes, and their 
 children.* They were mostly rude, poor, ignorant, and 
 devoted to servitude. Such of the Indians as were not 
 kept in the towns it was customary to banish to particular 
 places which they durst not leavewithout permission. One 
 of their Caciques was generally appointed to superintend 
 tiiem. Land was allotted to them for raising provisions. 
 They were employed in public works, the mines, 6cr, 
 The law, it is true, assigned them pay, but through the 
 rapacity of their overseers they rarely received the whole 
 and often nothing at all. They had, moreover, to pay 
 taxes, one- fourth of which was allotted to the Cacique 
 that he might collect them with the greater rigour. 
 
 Such nearly was the lot of all those Indians of the inde- 
 pendent tribes, who were converted to Christianity by 
 missionary monks and priests. Is it then surprising that 
 the proud and free children of Nature should shrink with 
 horror from such effects of the religion of Christ ? 
 
 There were it is true free Indians also who professed 
 the Christian faith. These were such as, though inde- 
 pendent, yet in daily intercourse with the Spaniards had 
 adopted words of their language, ceremonies of their 
 ritual, and more or less of their manners. But these, 
 though they are baptized, carry rosaries and amulets, and 
 make the sign of the cross, scarcely deserve the appellation 
 of Christians. They retain their ancient heathen notions 
 unimpaired ; and the Peruvian, with his Christian baptis 
 mal name, still worships the sun, as in the days of Pizarro. 
 
 * The Spaniards reckon ekven gradations of the mixed blood, namely . 
 Mestizos, children of a European and an Indian woman ; Quarterones, 
 children of a European and a Mestiza ; Ochavones, children of a Euro- 
 pean and a Quarterona; Pult hueles, children of a European and an Ocba- 
 vona ; children of an Indian and a Pulchuela are like the Spaniards : 
 Mulatos, children of a Eui opean and a Negro woman ; Quarterones, 
 < hildren of a European and a Mulatto woman ; Saltatrds, children of a 
 ^uart-ron and a European M.oman ; Calpan mulatos, children of a Mu- 
 latto and an Indian woman ; Chinos, children of a Calpan mulatto and 
 an Indian woman ; Zambos or Zambajos i all the children of Black* am' 
 Indian women. 
 
204 SURVEY OF ClIlirSTIANlTY. 
 
 The Spanish missioneros form in general the lowest 
 order of the clergy. There have never been wanting men 
 who, from inward piety, or from the duty of obedience, 
 or because they were glad to escape monastic restraint, 
 have cheerfully undertaken the functions of missionaries. 
 Most of them, however, were extremely ignorant and su- 
 perstitious ; unacquainted with the world and the human 
 heart ; regarding empty ceremonies as religion, and having 
 all their ideas infected with monastic prejudices. Even 
 the better educated Jesuiis, who came from Europe, 
 could not wholly divest themselves of these prejudices. 
 Hence they considered all that they heard of the religious 
 systems of the Indians as the work of the devil, and repre- 
 sented it in the false light in which they themselves beheld 
 it. The national god of the Abiponcs, Keebet, the 
 invisible, the terrible, was taken for the real devil by \\\t; 
 learned Father Dobrizhorfer himself; and because the 
 Abiponcs or Mepones, who rove about on horseback in 
 the immense pampas or plains, between the Rio Grande 
 V r ermejo, the Rio Salad >, and La Plata, call their god 
 (Iroaperikie, " ancestor,"' the Jesuit made no scruple to 
 assert that the Abipones looked upon Satan as their 
 grandfather. 
 
 The Savages, by means of their sound understanding, 
 frequently judged much more accurately of the Europeans 
 than the Europeans of the Savages. They saw them 
 ■steeped in vices from which the child of Nature recoils witli 
 horror, and could not reconcile the pious precepts of the 
 missioneros with this prodigious depravity of manners. 
 - ; Wherefore comest thou to us, fatlier ?" said an Abiponc 
 one day to DobrizhofTer : " why dost thou not first make 
 Christians of thy Spanish brethren?" — " Thou forbiddest 
 :is to have more than one wifeJ' said Ychoalay, the 
 
 • •acique, to Father Brigniel — " are not the Spaniards 
 Christians ? — and yet they are not content with one wife. 
 They do much worse than we. They shamelessly attack 
 any woman they meet, when their desires are excited. 
 The Christians, thou tellest us, ou^ht not to steal. Very 
 true : a man ought not, though no Christian. Why then 
 do thy Spaniards come and steal our horses, nay, even 
 
 • > 1 1 r young boys and girls, and drag them away into 
 slavery '" 
 
SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. -05 
 
 With the prevalence of such sentiments among the 
 lavages of South America, and with the recollection of 
 the horrible cruelties perpetrated by the Spaniards in the 
 conquest of the country — cruelties which are transmitted 
 in traditions and songs from race to race — the very name 
 of Christian has become and continues to be a term of 
 execration among numberless independent tribes of that 
 continent ; and hatred, fear, and abhorrence of it are 
 perpetuated from generation to generation. 
 
 The Jesuits, by their courage, prudence, and perse 
 verance, were more successful than any of the othe: 
 Orders in making conquests in the territories of the free 
 Indians for the Catholic faith. These conquests, however, 
 as it is well known, ultimately proved to be no real gain 
 either for humanity, or for Christianity, or for the crown of 
 Spain. In our survey of California we have seen the 
 manner in which this Order treated the savages and ex- 
 ercised the calling of missionaries there : we meet with 
 the same system in South America ; but there, and par- 
 ticularly in the provinces of Paraguay, it was prosecuted 
 with much more signal success. 
 
 So far back as the sixteenth century, the Order sent 
 many of its members to the southern as well as to the 
 northern half of the New World, to preach the kingdom 
 of God. These undaunted men, ever disposed to im- 
 portant enterprises, from motives of religion or ambition, 
 dispersed themselves among the Indians. Though many 
 of them were put to death by the Savages, out of hatred 
 to the Spaniards and Portuguese, yet more followed, un- 
 armed, with merely the gentle words of peace and love 
 upon their lips. Thus did they gradually inspire the 
 ferocious Indians with confidence, and gain their good 
 will by presents. The Jesuit could at last traverse the 
 wilderness unmolested, and control by words and gestures 
 hordes which the Portuguese and Spanish soldier durst not 
 encounter. 
 
 In order, however, to confer on the Savages the benefit 
 of more sublime ideas, it was requisite to bind them in 
 some measure to permanent abodes, and to communicate 
 to them, with the arts of agriculture and social life, at 
 least the civilization of semi-barbarians. The Jesuits 
 18 
 
ZQ6 survey or Christianity. 
 
 settled among them; they prevailed on individuals to' 
 reside near them, instructed the children, and by gifts 
 ingratiated themselves with the adults. Thus Indian 
 villages sprang up amid deserts, and churches by the side 
 of huts. The missionaries then began to talk of sacred 
 things, to impart instruction in Christianity, and to admin- 
 ister baptism. Such was the origin of most of the 
 missions in New Granada, La Plata, Peru, Venezuela, and 
 the other provinces. Many excellent men of the Society 
 of Jesus might here be mentioned, who, impelled by pure 
 philanthropy, first opened the way into those wilds for 
 Christianity and humanity. How important were the 
 services of Father Deere, the apostle of the Yameos, ltu- 
 balees, and lnquiavats, alone, who made Cuenza in 
 Quito the central point of a widely operating mission, 
 over which he was still presiding with credit in the year 
 1727; who translated books of Christian instruction for 
 the Savages in eighteen of their dialects ; and sent forth 
 the new converts, whom, with truly Christian affection he 
 protected from oppression, to be apostles of Jesus among 
 their countrymen ! 
 
 Between the rivers Paraguay and Uraguay, along the 
 banks of the Parana and Bermejo, the disciples of Loyola 
 selected the widest theatre of their operations. More 
 numerous and more successful here than in any other 
 quarter, they extended their settlements among the Guara- 
 nees, Charruas, Chiquitos, and other savage tribes of 
 Rio de la Plata, Paraguay, Tucuman, and Tarja. Inva- 
 riable humanity, kindness, and prudence achieved more 
 than arms could have accomplished. European culture 
 soon embellished the environs of the missions ; the 
 wretched huts and chapels constructed of poles and 
 boughs of trees gave place to walled houses, at first built 
 of earth and afterwards of stone. The villages assumed 
 from the breadth and regularity of their streets, the ap- 
 pearance of towns. The churches in each village, lofty 
 handsome structures, with steeples containing four or five 
 bells, were provided with organs, and adorned with richly 
 gilt high-altars, silver utensils, and many images. A 
 pompous service made a powerful impression on tin 
 senses of the astonished Savages. They were taught tr 
 
SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 207 
 
 sing and to play on all sorts of musical instruments ; they 
 were instructed also in masons' and carpenters' work, 
 watch-making, and other useful arts. The business of the 
 day, from the first hour to the last, was allotted among the 
 inhabitants of each place and performed with as much 
 accuracy as in a convent. The Jesuits contemplated 
 their creation with pride and pleasure. Such was its 
 state so early as the middle of the seventeenth century ; 
 and we have an account of it in the Travels, in 1692, of 
 Father Anton Sepp, who was called thither from the 
 Tirol to undertake the cure of souls in the tribe of the 
 Japeyoos. 
 
 The Jesuits now established here such a form of govern- 
 ment as might be expected of monks, and as they would 
 fain give at this day to the whole world, if the times were 
 not more powerful than they. The character of the tribe* 
 on the Paraguay ami Uraguay favoured their plan. The 
 Guaranees and other Indians of these parts were previously 
 more or less disposed to a theocracy by the religion of the 
 sun which prevailed under the Inea- ; and their manner* 
 were comparatively mild. By auricular confession the 
 theocracy was rendered more complete than it could be 
 in the time of the hn*as. The priest was made acquainted 
 with the most secret thoughts of the members of his flock. 
 The Indians, without any noiion of private property, ac- 
 customed to a community of goods, suffered without hesi- 
 tation all the land and the produce of labour to be divided 
 into three parts : one for the Church, or, as Father Char- 
 levoix calls it, " the property of God ;" one for the public 
 use ; and the third for individuals. " Ever) thing," says 
 Raynal, " that was admired in the legislation of the Incas 
 was revived, but in a more perfect form, in the ecclesias- 
 tical state of Paraguay : labour for the. aged, orphans and 
 soldiers ; reward of good actions ; superintendence over 
 morals and military exercises; ordinances against indo- 
 lence ; reverence for religion, virtue, and the servants ol 
 God. 
 
 Money was here unknown, and yet more conveniences, 
 nay, even more luxury, were to be found in the missions 
 of the Jesuits than at Cusco and Lima, the capitals of 
 Peru. Watch-makers, cabinet-makers, goldsmiths, lock 
 
^08 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 smiths, tailors, &c. deposited their goods in the public 
 warehouses of the priests, and were supplied with other 
 necessaries in their stead. For them the husbandman had 
 sown, for them the weaver made his cloth. They all 
 formed oi:e great family with an undivided property : and 
 ail paid obedience with a child-like spirit The Jesuits 
 were the fathers of the family, the teachers, the merchants, 
 the military commanders, the rulers! Each Jesuit, in his 
 parish, was the ecclesiastical and temporal superior, inde- 
 pendent of the rest, subordinate to the Provincial alone, 
 and the latter to the Genera! of the Order. 
 
 At first precautions were \ery properly taken to exclude 
 Spaniards from these colonies, that their dissolute way of 
 life might not scandalize the n*.w converts, or prevent 
 other Indian tribes from embracing Christianity. The 
 same pretext was subsequently made the means of con- 
 cealing the arrangements of the state founded by the Je- 
 suits from the courts of Spain and Portugal. By engag- 
 ing to pay into the exchequer a yearly poll-tax for con- 
 verted Indians, th^v obtained a royal edict prohibiting 
 Spaniards from entering the district of the missions with- 
 out leave of the Jesuits. For this ourpose they had posts 
 and kept strict watch on the frontiers. No stranger was 
 admitted. The governors and bishops, when they held 
 visitations, which were of very rare occurrence, were so 
 overwhelmed with demonstrations of respect, entertain- 
 ments, and presents, that they could do no other than make 
 the most favourable reports. Two visitation books were 
 moreover kept, one for the bishops, the other for the Pro- 
 ', incials. 
 
 To seal up this Jesuit empire more hermetically, the 
 Spanish language was prohibited in the colonies and the 
 Guaranee alone spoken. Of the Spanish Jesuits well- 
 ,'ried members only were admitted into the country; French 
 and German were preferred. On the separation of Por- 
 tugal from Spain, in 1640, the Jesuits took advantage ot 
 f his event, to apply to the court of Madrid for fire-arms to 
 defend themselves against the Portuguese, who retained 
 possession of Brazil. They modelled their military sys- 
 ■em after that of Europe ; formed regiments and compa- 
 res, infantry and cavalry, They built forts, called dactri- 
 
SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 209 
 
 nas, where one or two Jesuits held arbitrary command. 
 They assigned to each fort a certain tract of land, for the 
 subsistence of the garrison. The court of Spain furnished 
 neither money, clothing, nor arms. 
 
 Thus did the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, upon pre- 
 text of spreading the kingdom of heaven, secure for them- 
 selves a flourishing earthly kingdom; and they endeavoured 
 with equal courage and prudence to strengthen and extend 
 it. It was not without danger and even the death of many 
 of their members, several of whom Dobrizhoffer mentions 
 as martyrs, that they erected this New State. In 1729 it 
 comprised thirty settlements or reductions, as they 
 termed them, fifteen of which containing 62,263 souls, 
 were situated on the river Parana, and fifteen, with 69,405 
 inhabitants, on the Uraguay. There were, besides, seve- 
 ral missions on the rivers Paraguay and Bermejo not 
 included in this enumeration. 
 
 It cannot be denied that, if animal well-being is the 
 supreme good of mankind, the whole was cleverly plan- 
 ned and judiciously executed. But the subject of the 
 Jesuits was merely a trained human brute — nothing more. 
 Every higher thought, every indication of independence of 
 mind, were carefully suppressed as incitements to sin. 
 The Indians were enlightened only just so much as was 
 advantageous to their priestly rulers, who took good care 
 to keep aloof from them all notions which could cause 
 them to overstep the circle that was marked out for them. 
 Implicit obedience was a fundamental duty with the In- 
 dians, as in the Order. Whoever had committed a fault 
 went to the priest, solicited deserved punishment at his feet, 
 and gratefully kissed the hand which had chastised him. 
 Here was found, through habit, superstition, piety, igno- 
 rance, and civil institutions, a moral slavery such as the 
 world never beheld elsewhere, but in convents. The land 
 of the Jesuit missions might in fact be considered as a sin- 
 gle convent, and each of the reductions as a cell peopled 
 with men whose childish ignorance yielded to every impres- 
 sion; whose savage character was softened on the one hand 
 by the terrors of superstition, the pomp of the new wor- 
 ship, the power of habit, the omniscience of the priests. 
 
 leightened bv confession, and on the other hand bv free 
 18* 
 
•ilO SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 dom from care and the enjoyment of so many conve- 
 niences of life. The priest in the reduction was the 
 chief governor, the interpreter of God, the instructor, the 
 steward, the military commander, the physician, the judge, 
 the legislator, and the adviser of all. He directed the 
 affairs of families as he pleased. It was even so arranged 
 that the female selected herself a husband, not the man a 
 bride. Thus, if an Indian girl was desirous to marry, she 
 repaired to the Father of the reduction and acquainted him 
 with her inclination ; and, if he approved it, he sent for 
 the man of her choice, and informed him of his lot, which 
 he seldom refused. Father Sepp himself, in his account 
 of the country, expresses his surprise at this extraordinary 
 custom, through which maidens and wives were attached 
 by the tenderest secrets of their hearts to the venerable 
 Fathers of the Order. 
 
 Thus there prevailed, it is true, in this republic, a tran- 
 quillity, a harmony, an obedience, and an order, not to be 
 found in any other state in the world. Charlevoix, in his 
 time — the first half of the eighteenth century — might 
 justly boast, that " here were no complaints, no law-suits — 
 nay, that the meum and tuum were wholly unknown."— 
 There was nothing but praying and labour, silent obe 
 dience and mental poverty. 
 
 The existence of this empire of the Jesuits was long 
 kept secret from the courts of Spain and Portugal. The 
 viceroy, Martino de Barrua, indeed transmitted to his 
 •ourt, in 1730, alarming accounts respecting it. Indivi- 
 dual authors had treated of it without reserve ; but the 
 confessors at Lisbon and Madrid had no difficulty to pacify 
 the apprehensions of the sovereigns ; Jesuit writers repre- 
 sented the statements of the babblers as the calumnies of 
 envy ; nay, they induced Muratori himself, though a 
 stranger to them, to become their panegyrist, by furnishing 
 him, through Father Cataneo, with the materials for his 
 
 elebrated work : and by the persecutions which they 
 drew upon Ferdinand de Cardena, bishop of Paraguay, 
 when, towards the conclusion of the seventeenth century, 
 he set about stricter inquiries concerning the Christian 
 
 ongregations on the Parana and Uruguay, they deterred 
 others from following his example. 
 
 A treaty, concluded in 1750. between the courts Oi 
 
SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 211 
 
 Lisbon and Madrid, respecting the boundaries of theii 
 Colonies in South \ nerica, iceid en tally revealed the 
 secret and frustrated all the schemes of the Loyolites. In 
 drawing right lines the negotiators did not spare the 
 country of the missions, but parted it in such a manner 
 that many of the reductions fell to th< share of Brazil. 
 In vain did the venerabh Fathers in Europe strive to 
 prevent the executi ri\ of tl i treity. The commissioners 
 appointed by both powers made their appearance (in 
 17) J). I'he country »f the m «sionaries was in arms 
 against them. Troops were senl to reduce the Indians, 
 but met with so obstinate a res stance that they could 
 effect nothing. The Jesuits protested that this was not 
 their fault, that they were una >le to appease the fury of 
 the Indians. If was however appease 1, when the Spanish 
 and Portuguese commanders, having received reinforce- 
 ments." marched with then* united armies against the 
 reductions, and in February. 1756, defeated the Indians 
 in a pitched battle, in which the latter lost tweive hundred 
 men, and many pieces of cannon and colours. \ he 
 boundaries were adjusted : soon afterwards the Order was 
 suppressed ; the Jesuits in Paraguay disappeared, and not 
 an Indian again drew a sword in their behalf. 
 
 When the Jesuits quitted their missions, in 1757, they 
 had, according to the accurate statement of Dobrizhoffer, 
 thirteen on the Parana and nineteen on the Uraguay. 
 The former were inhabited in the year 1732 by 57,G49 
 persons, the latter by 83,533 ; but at the departure of the 
 Jesuits the total population scarcely amounted to one 
 hundred thousand. War, the small-pox, and other diseases, 
 had swept away great numbers of people. In the ten 
 colonies among the Chiquitos, on the right bank of the 
 La Plata, towards the frontiers of Peru, there were (in 
 17G6) 23,780 converted Indians, and in the colonies 
 among the Chakos, on the Rio Bermejo, there were at 
 the same time 5424 Christians, or at least baptized 
 persons. 
 
 After the suppression of the Order of Loyola, little 
 worth recording was heard from the Spanish and Portu- 
 guese missions in South America ; but frequent complaints 
 were made against the missionaries of the Order of Do 
 
212 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 minicans or Capuchins, that they carried on a considerable 
 contraband trade on the frontiers, and that they found 
 means to compel the Indians to cultivate their lands 
 without lawful compensation, or to purchase of them 
 amulets, rosaries, crucifixes, and other religious wares, 
 at exorbitant prices. 
 
 Thus the immense steppes, plains, or pampas, and the 
 Highlands in the interior of South America, southward 
 as far as Terra del Fuego, the land of the good-natured ' 
 Pesherays, are still abandoned to heathenism. The in- 
 surrection of the colonies against the Spanish sceptre, 
 and the sanguinary war of independence, which has raged 
 from the river La Plata to Darien, have almost entirely de- 
 stroyed the missions. The ancient missions at St. 
 Michael and Santa Teresa de Mayhures, on the Oronoko, 
 those on the river Patumayu and the mighty Maranham, 
 and mfiny along the La Plata and the Uraguay, lie ne- 
 glected, and others have been burnt. The Abipones, 
 the cruel Tobas, the independent inhabitants of the moun- 
 tains and forests of Peru, and the yet unsubdued tribes, by 
 whatever names they may be called, who cherish an he- 
 reditary abhorrence of the Spanish and Christian name, 
 rejoiced at these convulsions, which served to secure their 
 freedom ; and many of the converted tribes again became 
 Savages, with the warring Europeans, whom they alter- 
 nately assisted and harassed. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SURVEY OF BRASIL AND GUIANA. 
 
 John VI. the late King of Portugal, who in 1807 made 
 Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brasil, his residence, excited bv 
 his presence great hopes of improvement in the countries 
 of South America subject to his sceptre. It is well known 
 how peremptorily he decided against the introduction of 
 'lie Inquisition : how he promised the gradual abolition of 
 
BRASIL GUIANA. 
 
 213 
 
 lie ave-tratle in his dominions, and opposed the restora- 
 ion of th»> Order of the Jesuits. It is well known with 
 what ti be ra[Uy he favoured (since 181^ European emi- 
 grants and settlers, tor the purpose of strengthening and 
 pro, noting the prosperity of his American dominions. 
 The latter, however, under the government o f his eldest 
 son, Pedro, who assumed the title of Emperor of Brasil, 
 advances but slowly. The multitude prefers indepen- 
 dence in North America, where every sect builds i-tself a 
 church unmolested, while in Brasil the Catholic com- 
 munion is the only one in which it is possible to gain salva- 
 tion. Pros-Stan's are tolerated, it is true, if they but 
 abstain from a public profession of ther religious tenets. 
 Toleration, howexer, is but a small an* i^ecarious boon, 
 depending on the will and life of a single individual. 
 
 The diffusion of the Romish faith among the aboriginal 
 inhabitants is still prosecuted, as of old, rather as an 
 official duty than from inward impulse. The missions of 
 the Jesuits on the Toncantines and Rio Doca, on the 
 Maranham and the Rio Xegro, as far as the frontiers of 
 Peru, still subsist They are supplied by other friars. 
 Their success is not brilliant. By tar the greater part of 
 the Indians dwelling among the Europeans, nay, many of 
 the numerous Negroes, know nothing of Christianity. 
 They live peaceably in the worship of the deities of 
 their ancestors. It is more curious than unaccountable 
 that Portuguese and Spaniards should rather tolerate 
 heathen among them tlian Protestant Christians, or wor- 
 shippers of the true God according to the Mosaic law. 
 
 The neighbouring country of Guiana has been in later 
 times more neglected, if possible, than Brasil, in regard to 
 the civilization of its inhabitants. The French and Dutch 
 settlers along the coast were content to overawe with arms 
 the martial tribes of the original inhabitants, or to conciliate 
 them by annual presents, that they might raise in security 
 their sugar, coffee, indigo roucou, cotton, and spices. For- 
 merly more paii s were taken, especially in the French pos- 
 sessions, to enlighten the Indians by the preaching of the 
 Gospel. But the seed sown by the first missionaries after- 
 wards degenerated, or ran wild, or wholly perished. The 
 Caribbees still retain a tradition founded on the Christian 
 
214 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 doctrine that the Supreme Being sent his son from Heaven 
 to kill a prodigious serpent ; after the conquest of the 
 monster there issued from its bowels worms, each of 
 which generated a male and female Carib. What absurd 
 notions must the Christian missionaries have frequently 
 implanted with their dogmas in the minds of their convert- 
 ed Savages! 
 
 Their own ideas of divine things are often far more 
 rational than the misconceived doctrines which they have 
 derived from Christian priests. " The Indians of these 
 countries," says the anonymous author of Travels in 
 Guiana and Cayenne, " silly and childish as their other 
 notions may be, nevertheless believe that the Supreme 
 Being, who bestows on them all they need, is too exalted 
 to accept presents and offerings from men, and too 
 bountiful to require prayers and solicitations." They are 
 no strangers to ihe immortality of the soul : but we are 
 acquainted, and that most imperfectly, with the religious 
 ideas of very few of the tribes contiguous to the Euro- 
 peans ; the Indians beyond the mountains are mostly 
 unknown to us even by name. 
 
 Since the Revolution, the functions and occupations of 
 the missionaries nave almost ceased in the French settle- 
 ments. They hid previously been performed by Jesuits, 
 and subsequently by other monastic Orders. In Dutch 
 Guiana infinitely less had been done from the first for the 
 diffusion of Christianity. The indolent, voluptuous, and 
 tyrannical planters cared but Little for the propagation of a 
 faith, which had struck such scanty root in their own 
 minds. Stedman's account of Surinam exposed the 
 hideous atrocity of those scarcely human colonists, slave- 
 drivers, and traders. They would not do the least even for 
 their own \egroes, whom they treated as brutes; and the 
 few Protestant ministers at Paramaribo, Berbice, and 
 Essequebo, were too dependent and under too much 
 restraint to perform more than the most urgent of their 
 pastoral duties demanded. The United Brethren alone 
 have exerted themselves here with zeal since the year 
 1 730. They first formed a small congregation at Para- 
 maribo, where they supported themselves by th» labour of 
 their hands ; then founded, with some baptized Indians, 
 the mission of Sharon, on the Sarameka, in 1757, likewise 
 
GUIANA. 2l£ 
 
 that of Hope, on the river Corentyn in 1735, and others 
 near the sources of the Sarameka, at Quarna, among the 
 Free Negroes in 1 7G5, and at Berbice. Their labours 
 here, however, seem not to have been productive of im- 
 portant results. 
 
 Since the English made themselves masters, in 1801. 
 of the principal Dutch and French settlements in Guiana, 
 greater attention has been paid to these parts by the British 
 missionaries. Two new missions have been established, 
 since 1807, at Sommelsdyk and Demerara, and provided 
 with printed Bibles. The Jews of Surinam alone pur- 
 chased a considerable number, because in their syna- 
 gogues they use the Dutch translation of the Old Tes- 
 tament. 
 
 In the year 1823 the mission of the London Missionary 
 Society in Demerara became a subject of painful interest 
 to the whole British nation, in consequence of an insur- 
 rection among the slaves belonging to the plantation 
 called Resouvenir, where Mr. Smith, the missionary, 
 resided. The causes and the consequences of that com- 
 motion are too well known to every reader to need repe 
 tition here : suffice it to state, that Smith was charged 
 with having instigated the Blacks to violence, tried by 
 martial law, and sentenced to death. The royal remission 
 of that sentence, the extreme injustice of which it is im- 
 possible for any unprejudiced mind to doubt, arrived after 
 disease and imprisonment had put a period to the bodily 
 sufferings of the unfortunate missionary. The cloud thus 
 thrown upon the prospects of religious usefulness in this 
 quarter has not yet passed off, and the directors of the 
 Society have since resolved to abandon the station — 
 though it appears that they have been induced by subse- 
 quent information to defer carrying that resolution into 
 ^tfect. 
 
2 1 6 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS — NEGRO SLAVES — THE EMPIRE 
 OF THE BLACKS IN HAYTI ACTIVITY OF THE PRO- 
 TESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE BRITISH AND DANISH 
 ISLANDS. 
 
 The extensive archipelagoes of islands which lie scat* 
 t.ered between the two great continents of America, and 
 are known by the names of the Antilles and Bahamas, were 
 first discovered by the Europeans, first conquered, first 
 fertilized with the blood of their inhabitants, and then re- 
 peopled with greedy planters and African Negro Slaves, 
 ft was only in St. Vincent, Tobago, Martinique, and Do- 
 minica, that a few wretched relics of the aboriginal in- 
 habitants, the Caribbees, maintained themselves. 
 
 In their towns and villages the cruel conquerors built 
 numerous churches, chapels, and convents for monks and 
 nuns. They rejoiced to be able to plant the cross in tin 
 New World : but the religion of Him who suffered on it 
 was not propagated with the cross. The baptized were 
 more ferocious than the unbaptized who had been massa- 
 cred, or than the wretched Negroes who were treated like 
 brutes. 
 
 For a long time it was considered as not worth while 
 to impart Christian instruction to the Blacks employed in 
 the cultivation of the islands. If they understood the 
 language of the scourge, it was thought quite sufficient. 
 There were moreover great impediments to their con- 
 version, as on the one hand their labour left them too 
 little leisure, and on the other they frequently changed 
 their master and residence, or pined in misery. It was 
 found necessary to drag away one hundred thousand 
 Negroes annually from Africa, to supply the places of 
 those who had perished. 
 
 It was not till the commencement of the eighteenth 
 century that the Europeans began to think seriously of 
 the conversion of the Blacks, at least of such of them a-- 
 
WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 21 1 * 
 
 had acquired their freedom. Here too, and especially in 
 the French islands, the Jesuits were most assiduous in 
 their efforts. The Spanish colonies manifested less zeal 
 for the civilization of their slaves. Political writers, nay 
 oven divines, went so far as to dissuade from such 
 attempts ; some, probably from the same reason which at 
 the present day causes the timid jealousy of European 
 viziers, the pride of caste, and monastic intrigue, to 
 oppose the humanizing of mankind : that the diffusion of 
 knowledge might be dangerous to the public welfare and 
 tranquillity — others, because the Black, though a man, is 
 of inferior race and not capable of attaining such a degree 
 pf moral elevation as the European. 
 
 In the Spanish settlements in the West Indies most of 
 the Negroes have in fact continued to be worshippers of 
 fetishes : and the converts have no other Christian duty but 
 to attend mass a iew times in the course of the year. Who 
 fever neglects this point is punished with fine or flogging. 
 
 In the French YVest India islands a better spirit pre 
 vailed, at least in this particular. The activity of the 
 Jesuits, Capuchins, and other orders of monks, was en- 
 couraged and seconded. The mission founded in 1701, 
 by the Jesuits in St. Domingo, numbered in the year 
 17 45 nineteen parishes; and at present, in the inde« 
 pendent Negro state of Hayti, comprehending nearly a 
 million of souls, there is not a village without its church. 
 The fifty-four parishes of this republic were divided into 
 the episcopal sees of Port au Prince, Leogane, Cape 
 Henry, and Sans Souci. The archbishop of the island 
 resides at Portau Prince. There is not a village but has 
 its elementary schools, not a town without institutions 
 tor the promotion of the arts and sciences. ?»Iore civili- 
 zation, more industry, more love for art and science, 
 prevail at this day in this West Indian Negro State than 
 were ever found there since the conquest of the island 
 !t is also worthy of remark that the British Bible Societies 
 e extended their beneficent influence to'Hayti. 
 
 In the British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch West India 
 
 islands also, the Christian instruction of the Negroes was 
 
 not seriously commenced till after the beginning of the 
 
 st century* In Jamaica appeared the Moravian Brethren 
 
 19 
 
'218 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in 1754, the Wesleyan Methodists (in 1781), and the Baj* 
 tisis, and founded numerous missions. Of more thafi 
 three hundred thousand biack inhabitants of the island, 
 a sixth part were converted in the space of thirty years to 
 Christianity The most enlightened or tlie most pious of 
 the free Negroes are selected for preachers, and a hundred 
 of them are assiduously engaged in propagating the divine 
 word. The United Brethren are not less successful in 
 their operations at Basse Terre, in St Kitts (since 1774); 
 at Sharon, in Barbadoes, (since 1765) where Sir Christo- 
 pher Codrington, the governor, in the middle of last cen- 
 tury allotted lands to the value of thirty thousand pounds 
 for the endowment of a college for training missionaries 
 and at St. John's Grace-hill, Grace Bay, Cedar Hall, and 
 New Field, in Antigua. 
 
 iNext to the Moravians, the Wesleyan Methodists have 
 been most active in the West Indies, especially in the Bri- 
 tish islands. They have had (since 17^8) their stationary 
 missions in the Bahama islands and at Trinidad, in the 
 latf.er island along with the Catholic priests, who still con- 
 tinue, as they did at the time of the Spanish sovereignty, 
 to reside, by the name of missionaries, in the eight villages 
 of the native Indians. They have also supplied the island 
 of Grenada (since 1788) with preachers; likewise St. 
 Vincent, the Swedish island of St. Bartholomew (since 
 1788), the mountainous Dominica, Antigua, &c. The 
 latter island contains their most flourishing mission, to 
 which belonged, in 1&26, above 3500 souls. 
 
 In the Danish islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. 
 Juan, the Moravians set about the conversion of the Ne- 
 groes so early as tiie year 1732. Till then nothing of 
 the kind had been attempted. Leonhard Dober, a Ger- 
 man, was the first person who left Heirnhut, and proceed- 
 ed for the fulfilment of the holy purpose, poor, destitute 
 of resources, without a knowledge of the language, to 
 St. Thomas, to instil into slaves the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity.* Others followed him to the other Danish islands. 
 
 * Some conception of the spirit which animated this modern apostle 
 may be formed, when it is known that he had fully resolved before he left 
 Europe to sell himself for a slave in the West Indies, if lie could find no 
 • <ther means of gaining access to the Negroes and accomplishing hie 
 benevolent object. 
 
WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 219 
 
 Oldendorp, in his History of the Missions of the Evange- 
 lical Brethren in the Caribbee isl'an is, elati - \erv circum- 
 stantially the numerous obstacles which the} had I ere to 
 encounter. Marty of these arose from the ba .-mnt of 
 the European mastersAthemselves, many from the disper- 
 sion of the Negroes in distant plantations ; butth gi tatest 
 consisted in the diversitj qi' their languages. ' In • lacks 
 belonged to, o\ wer-< descended from, totail diffei ^na- 
 tions. Then ma ters were Danes, French, l*ei ■■■ , and 
 Dutch, of different religious professions. n< : tholics 
 manifested the strongesi repi 'nance tu suriei »; ,; " hea- 
 then Negroes to be instructed m Jtlnstiinitj by ;«>tes- 
 tants; ami on man] occasions the missionaries were in 
 danger of theii lives, not from v eg roes — no — fron the 
 Christian Whites. 
 
 The perseverance of* the Brethren nevertheless triumph- 
 ed, and procured in 1 755 a royal or lindiici facilitating, 
 the labour of conversion, assigning salaries for caiecrrists y 
 increasing the number, of Me missionaries, and enjoini ;g 
 the baptism of the hildren of slaves. The same ordi- 
 nance, though it i (deed forbade all compulsory means in 
 the attempts to convert the Blacks to Christianity, never- 
 theless had recourse itself to such, and those of the most 
 efficacious kind. It prohibited, namely, the marriage of 
 all slaves who had not ret embraced Christianity. 
 
 The Christian faith is by this time pretty-general among, 
 the Negroes of those isiands. The missionaries have 
 become more assiduous. The Moravians have two set- 
 tlements in St. Thomas, New Herrnhut and Niesky ; the 
 like number in St. Juan, namely Bethany and Emmaus ; 
 and three in St. Croix — Friedenthal, FrifJuenburg, and 
 Friedensfeld- From the testimony of the Danish colo- 
 nists, we know what the fruits of the Gospel have been. 
 The Negro slaves have become, through the doctrines of 
 Christ, quieter subjects, more upright citizens, more dili- 
 gent servants, more patient sufferers : ami from the con- 
 templation of this improvement in the Blacks, the planter? 
 themselves have been rendered more humane. 
 
220 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIFFUSION OF CHRIS- 
 TIANITY IN A31ERICA. 
 
 America, for o long time after its discovery, had no 
 impoitance in the eyes of Europeans but as a mine of 
 gold, silver, and precious stones, and as a land producing 
 cotton, sr.gar, indigo, tobacco, cacao, vanilla, dyeing 
 woovls, &c. For the inhabitants of this country not a 
 soul felt the least concern ; on the contrary they were 
 driven from their former abodes or massacred, because 
 the European Christians could not treat them as market- 
 able commodities. 
 
 After the colonies of Europe in the New World has?' 
 become mere numerous and more populous, the countries 
 were more highly valued not because the means of ap- 
 proaching the. savage aborigines and imparting to them a 
 higher degree of civilization wem multiplied, but because 
 America promised new markets for the consumption of 
 European manufactures. It was not. European govern- 
 ments, but either philanthropic individuals or Orders of 
 monks, that paid attention to the noblest production of 
 this quarter of the globe — to man — and attempted, by 
 means of instruction, to render him worthy of bid destina- 
 tion in the spiritual world In Europe, indeed, high and 
 low boasted of imitating Jesus ; but scarcely one out of 
 thousands thought of doing- as Jesus and his holy band of 
 apostles had done. Columbus seemed to have discovered 
 a new world m> rely to infect the old one with new poi- 
 sons ; nay, the very Europeans who emigrated to the co- 
 lonies became more servile, and seemed, by settling on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, to have lost their title to 
 European rights. 
 
 These felt indignantly the oppression of the mother 
 country. They did, what always has been and always 
 will be done, when nations, possessed of better know^ 
 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERICA. 221 
 
 ledge are ill treated and neglected by imprudent rulers. 
 The English colonies in North America separated them- 
 selves from the parent state, and flourish, d in indepen- 
 dendence as a democratic confederation. 'I hirty-five 
 years later Spanish America followed their example. 
 From this period the New World acquires a political, not 
 merely a commercial, importance for the Old. Hereto- 
 fore the life of America constituted hut one and the same 
 life with that of Europe. The former separated, and the 
 latter isolated and limited to itself, nearly as it was ante- 
 rior to the sixteenth century --the effects of the revolutions 
 of America are not to be calculated As the once flou- 
 rishing Asia was eclipsed by Europe, so Europe is likely 
 to be surpassed by the youthful America. In America 
 we find a free and fre>h development of reason and f 
 every moral faculty, to which domestic, civil, an.) political 
 institutions must conform, as means to the end — in Europe 
 antiquated prejudices, customary formalities, to which, in 
 state and church, in town and village the mental powers, 
 as means, are rendered subservient : there, independent 
 Christianity in churches of various forms — here, priestly 
 violence, adherence to cerem mies, and intolerance in 
 matters of conscience and religion. 
 
 When Christianity passed over from Asia to the colder 
 regions of philosophizing Europe, it underwent the most 
 violent, the most unnatural changes from nation to nation, 
 from age to age, from council to council. Hierarchy, 
 dogmatism, ceremonies, and svmhois usurped the place of 
 the divine, the living, the simple, ofthe revelation of Jesus. 
 
 With the passage of European Christianity to America 
 new changes are preparing for it. Jn the feeling of their 
 independence, the States beyond the Atlantic will not 
 long look to another quarter of the globe for decisions and 
 oracles. The churches will assume other, and assuredly 
 simpler forms, agreeably to the higher cultivation and 
 superior knowledge of the times. America has not yet 
 produced any Reformers. It needs none. The vital 
 power of this portion of the world has more need of its 
 •mdivided energy, to form and combine into a whole the 
 heterogenous masses of society, which are constantly re 
 -eiving accessions bv fresh emigrations from abroad 
 
 !9* 
 
222 SUKVEY OF CHRXSTIANITr. 
 
 What the Europeans have hitherto brought thither wa.v 
 only the fruit of their political, ecclesiastical, and acade- 
 mical relations, the leavings of European ages, scarcely fit 
 for American climates and localities. Much of it still 
 subsists, because those who carried it thither are still 
 living". But the American atmosphere already operates 
 perceptibly or. the exotic plant, to make it the child of its 
 own influences. The word of God will remain, but not 
 the European exposition ; the doctrine and revelation of 
 Jesus will remain, but not the Acta Conciliorum, the 
 Augsburg Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism. 
 
 The number of persons living on the thirteen millions 
 of square miles in the two Americas is estimated by 
 Humboldt, the celebrated traveller, at 34,284,000. Of 
 these 13,162,000 are Whites; 8,610,000 Indians - 
 6,223,000 Negroes; and 6,289,0« of mixed races. 
 According to the same writer, Spanish continental 
 America has a population of sixteen, and Portuguese 
 Vmerica of four millions ; while the English language is 
 spoken by 11,297,500 persons ; and seven millions and a 
 half of the aborigines still retain their native idioms, and 
 are almost utter strangers to those of Europe. He seems 
 however, to have fallen into a palpable error in compre- 
 hending the total population of America, with the ex 
 ception of 820,000 yet independent Indians, under th( 
 denominations of Roman Catholics and Protestants, and 
 representing the number of the former as being 22, 1 77,000, 
 and that of the latter, 11,287,000. There can be no 
 doubt that a very large proportion of the Indians and 
 Negroes, whom, as it may be seen above, he sets down a;- 
 constituting together about fifteen millions, or nearly half 
 the population of this extensive portion of the globe, nr< 
 still heathen ; to say nothing of the merely nominal 
 Christianity which prevails in a large part of the other 
 half. 
 
 The religious notions communicated to the convert.-' 
 Indians by missions of the Catholic church consist, i?: 
 fact, but too often in external forms and ceremonies and 
 constraint of conscience. In America too, the divine 
 spirit of Jesus is much less conspicuous than the earthly 
 spirit of the monastic orders. Hierarchical honour ani 
 
SENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERICA. 22S 
 
 the interest of the church are but too busy behind the 
 ostensible image of the honour of God and the salvation 
 of miserable souls. 
 
 The missions of the Protestant church, on the other 
 hand, have not always been entitled to praise. The first 
 fourteen Protestant missionaries proceeded in the year 
 1556 from Geneva to the wilds of the New World: 
 thousands have since followed nom various countries in 
 all directions, with the best intentions, but not always with 
 genuine apostolic unction. The Quakers, Baptists, Me- 
 thodists, and Evangelical Brethren, have approved them- 
 selves the most active. 
 
 The missionaries of the two communions, Catholic and 
 Protestant — I mean the majority of them and not the 
 highly laudable exceptions on botii sides — pursued in 
 some respects opposite ways for the accomplishment of 
 their ends. The Catholics strove first to civilize the 
 Savages by means of new habits, by external discipline, 
 and by winning the senses, in order to prepare and render 
 them susceptible of the more sublime of the divine revela- 
 tions. The Protestant missionaries, on the contrary, en- 
 deavoured to produce external improvement by amending 
 the heart and soul. They related to the Savages the 
 history of the incarnation, life, sufferings, and death, of 
 the Son of God, and hoped, with a genuine faith in 
 miracles, that, by this history, by this direction of hearts to 
 the Lamb of God and to his blood, all was done, and 
 that grace would be mighty in the Savages. They ex- 
 pected every good thing, every Christian and every civil 
 virtue, to spring from love to the Saviour. 
 
 Both courses had their advantages and their disadvan 
 tages. Souls were gained by both : and though the reli- 
 gious notions of the baptized were most impeifect, con- 
 tused, and absurd — and how could they be otherwise ? — 
 still the Savage was rendered nearer akin by them to tlu 
 more civilized European. The way to improvement was 
 opened. We find in Hayti an independent State founded 
 by Negroes, with a constitution, manners, laws, and regu 
 lations, which rival those of the most polished European 
 nations. In another century our descendants will see 
 new empires of the copper-coloured aborigines of Amerir>; 
 
224 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY". 
 
 flourishing in Christian civilization; and the Muses &t 
 Greece and Rome, England, France, Italy, and Ger- 
 many, will have their temples in the now impenetrable 
 forests along the Ypalachian Mountains and the Cordil- 
 leras de los Andes. 
 
 The preceding observations, however, apply iather to 
 America as it was, titan to the present state of that im- 
 mense continent, over great part of which a new day has 
 begun to dawn. The separation of the ►Spanish colonies 
 from the mother country, and the general diffusion of 
 liberty and knowledge among them, are opening a way for 
 the propagation ol" Christian truth and all its attendant 
 blessings, beyond any expectations which a few years 
 since the most ardent mind could have reasonably in- 
 dulged. From Mexico to Patagonia, throughout region? 
 covered until these days as with the shadow of death, the 
 germ of intellectual and moral life is beginning to expand. 
 In the whole range of the Spanish Americas, not only is 
 the unhallowed slave trade effectually prohibited, but the 
 very incentive to the crime has been removed by pro- 
 visions for the early and gradual abolition of slavery itself. 
 All persons of every colour, born subjects of the inde- 
 pendent States, are declared free from their birth ; and 
 the governments of all these States have agreed that dif- 
 ference of colour shall not produce any difference in the 
 civil condition of their subjects. With a laudable solici- 
 tude for the intellectual cultivation of the latter, these 
 governments are moreover actively promoting general edu- 
 cation by the foundation and endowment of academical 
 and scholastic institutions. Already has the city of Buenos 
 Ayres a university with upward of four hundred students, 
 and thirty free schools supported by the government, and i;. 
 v.Jiich the British system of instruction is introduced, 
 besides seventy-iivc private schools, containing together 
 about five thousand children. The sum appropriated by 
 the government to the purposes of education for the year 
 1825 was 1 G 25,000 dollars. The increased thirst after 
 knowledge, which pervades the population of these new 
 independent States, may be inferred from the fact, that at 
 me commencement of the revolution, in 1810, the United 
 'Vovinces of T<a Plata had but one printing-press and on^ 
 
GENEKAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERICA. 225 
 
 newspaper ; whereas there are now in the city of Buenos 
 Ayres alone seven periodical papers, copies of which arc 
 tbund in all places of general resort. 
 
 In the State of Colombia also Model Schools for train- 
 ing professors and teachers have been founded by its presi- 
 dent, Bolivar, the great champion of South American 
 liberty, who has appropriated ¥0,000 dollars to Oie estab- 
 lishment of schools on the British system ; and Mr. Lan- 
 caster, one of the chief propagators of that system, is resi- 
 ding at Caraccas with a view to this object. 'I he same 
 statesman has also issued a decree for sending two young 
 men from every province in Peru to England, there to re- 
 ceive at the expense of the government the best education 
 that can be obtained; and ten of these young :)en are 
 now pursuing their studies in the neighbourhood of Lon- 
 don. On their return to their native land they are destined 
 to Jill important stations in the great work of general illu- 
 mination 
 
 Tne government of Mexico takes its share in the same 
 laudable design. Here the first school on the British sys- 
 tem was opened in 1 822, and some time afterwards the large 
 and beautiful convent of Bethlehem was appropriated to the 
 purposes of education. Here has been formed an acade- 
 mical institution, .-alculated to afford education to 1360 
 pupils, and divided into three departments: one of these is 
 destined to be a Model or Central School for training 
 teachers and professors, who, on finishing their education, 
 are to be sent into the different provinces of the State, in 
 order to fulfil the desire of the government, winch is, to es- 
 tablish in every village throughout Mexico a school, a print- 
 ing-press, and a chapel. 
 
 The Peruvian government has likewise directed the es- 
 tablishment at its expense of a central school on the Bri- 
 tish system for the children of either sex in Lima, and de- 
 partmental schools in the capital of every department of 
 that State ; and the State of Vera Cruz has allotted ^0,000 
 dollars per annum for promoting public education, in addi- 
 tion to the local funds and free contributions previously de- 
 voted to that purpose. 
 
 Encouraged by these dispositions, the Christian Socie- 
 ties of England and the United States have embraced everv 
 
226 SURVF.Y OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 opportunity of promoting the emancipation of the people 
 of Spanish America from the fetters of superstition, by the 
 circulation of the Scriptures, tracts, and translations of 
 works calculatOvl to convey just notions on the sublet of 
 religion. To tins object the British and Foreign Bible So- 
 ciety devoted in one year nearly .500/.. and in this career 
 of benevolence it is vigorously followed by the Ameri. .n 
 Bible Societies. Resident or travelling agents are the me- 
 dium by which these institutions are acting, and their efforts 
 have led to the formation of local societies, such as the 
 Colombian Society a.nl the Society <»f La Guayra, for the 
 promotion of the same object. A disposition to receive 
 the Scriptures is manifested in all quarters, and translations 
 of them into vernacirnr languages in which no version ex- 
 ists are required. in addition to the ancient Peruvian 
 translation, of which the New Testament has been com- 
 pleted, there is a prospect of obtaining a version in the 
 Guarani, a Ian-juage extensively spok> n in Paraguay ; and 
 another, in Aimara, has been undertaken at the charge of 
 *he British and Foreign Bible Society. 
 
PART THE FIFTH 
 
 SOUTH INDIA. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 >t;\\ HOLLAND — FIRST CHRISTIAN SETTLEMENT IN 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 It yet remains for us to cast a look at that insular world 
 in the southern hemisphere, extending eastward from the 
 Asiatic islands to the West American Ocean. If Australia 
 be not the youngest offspring- of the globe, the last land that 
 has issued from the bosom of the deep, still it is that por- 
 tion of the world which Europeans have last visited and ex- 
 plored. It occupies with its islands an area one-fourth 
 larger than the whole of Europe. 
 
 Here man is still in a state of original barbarism. But 
 how ignorant soever the rudest tribe may be of the simplest 
 conveniences of life ; how meagre soever their language, 
 how obtuse their faculties may seem ; how insensible so- 
 ever the heart may often be here where man can murder 
 his fellow-creature and sink immediately after the horrid act 
 into the most stupid indifference, like the ferocious beast, 
 which no longer recollects the deed when it has once quit- 
 ted the bloody spot ; how cruel the disposition of particu- 
 lar hordes, who yet devour human flesh, and bury the suck- 
 ling alive with its deceased mother : still all these Savages 
 have within them germs of religion, notions of superior 
 beings, belief in immortality. 
 
 We know as yet but little of the extent and interior of 
 New Holland, the largest of the South Sea islands, or, as 
 it is perhaps more properly considered, the fifth continent 
 •t* our globe— to sav nothing of its inhabitants and thei» 
 
228 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 religious ideas. They mostly live, like the first of mankind, 
 in trunks of trees hollowed out by fire and in huts made 
 of boughs. Their social relations are still those of the 
 primitive patriarchal world. They have neither kings nor 
 princes ; the lather of the family is its head, and age is reve- 
 renced. They are rude, savage, but not without a taste 
 for the arts. On the rocks in many places are to be seen 
 figures of men, animals, weapons, though imperfectly sculp- 
 tured with imperfect tools, yet often remarkably correct in 
 the outline. Their few implements and fishing-nets dis- 
 play ingenuity. 
 
 Since the English in 1788 began to settle here, and 
 founded the colonies of Sydney, Paramatta, Hawkesbury, 
 Newcastle, &c, which they partly peopled with convicts 
 of every class, they have not found means to establish any 
 tiling like a social intercourse with the natives. They were 
 too shy and too suspicious of the strangers ; these, however, 
 won by degrees the confidence of some of the chiefs, whom 
 they sought to make acquainted with European luxuries, 
 with a view to excite in them a desire fijr knowledge and 
 civilization. The business proceeded very slowly. The 
 ministers in the colonies found little opportunity to impart 
 notions of divine things to the Savages, and were obliged 
 to confine themselves almost entirely to the instruction and 
 conversion of the numerous convicts sent hither to cultivate 
 the land. In fact, they had more than enough to do to 
 awaken Christian sentiments and ideas in this reprobate 
 crew, addicted to drunkenness, gaming, lewdness, theft, 
 murder, and every crime. Their labours, combined with 
 the severity of the civil laws, have not, as we learn from 
 vear to year, proved fruitless. 
 
 At the beginning of 1825 an Auxiliary Church Mission- 
 ary Society was formed in New South Wales under the 
 patronage of the then governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, who 
 -ranted to the London Missionary Society ten thousand 
 teres of land for the purpose of establishing a mission among 
 the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. It was expected 
 that the appointment of missionaries, to reside among the 
 people, and to labour for their civilization and general im- 
 provement, might prove the means of preventing the recur- 
 rence of the alarming and fatal contests which had recently 
 
-N'EW HOLLAND. £20 
 
 taken place between them and the Europeans, the destruc- 
 tion of property, and the loss of human life. The increased 
 extent of more populous coast now occupied by the settle- 
 ment of Port Macquarie and the more recent establishment 
 at Moreton Bay, indeed, rendered it expedient to resort to 
 every prudent measure for maintaining a good understand- 
 ing with the natives. The spot selected for the commence- 
 ment of missionary labours in this quarter is situated on the 
 sea-coast, about forty miles north of Sydney, near Lake 
 Macquarie, and called Reid's Mistake. We are assured 
 that the missionary appointed to this station finds the study 
 of the language of the natives, from its affinity to that of 
 Otaheite where he previously resided, comparatively easy, 
 and he has made considerable progress in an attempt to- 
 wards the formation of one of their dialects into a written 
 language, a printed specimen of which has been transmit- 
 ted to England. Owing to the great expense attending this 
 mission, the directors of the London Missionary Society, 
 at whose cost it is undertaken, have been induced to apply 
 to the local government for aid, in support of the measures 
 requisite for promoting industry and civilization among the 
 aborigines dwelling near the station ; but, should this appli- 
 cation prove unsuccessful, it is probable that the mission 
 will be abandoned. 
 
 To the grant above mentioned to the London Missionary 
 Society, Sir Thomas Brisbane added during his government 
 a grant of ten thousand acres to the Church Missionary 
 Society, and another to the Wesleyan Missionary Society 
 of double that quantity, in consideration of its more exten- 
 sive establishment in the colony. In these grants, which 
 are to be occupied for the benefit of the aborigines of New 
 South Wales, a sure foundation has been laid, it may be 
 hoped, for the permanent and successful exertions of the 
 different Societies. 
 
 By the Wesleyan Society a mission has been commenced 
 among the natives in the vicinity of Wellington, of whom 
 the missionary gives the following account : — " It is im- 
 possible to state with precision the number of natives in this 
 neighbourhood ; but certainly it is not considerable. There 
 are five tribes besides the Bathurst tribe : their usual places 
 of resort are many miles from Wellington, but occasionally 
 20 
 
230 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY", 
 
 they all visit this spot. How large these tribes may be it 
 is hazardous to conjecture, a whole tribe having perhaps 
 never been seen together : they are commonly divided into 
 groupes of sixty or severity. They are in general taller, 
 stouter, and more athletic than the Blacks nearer the colo- 
 ny, and they evince some superiority of intellect: in point 
 of ignorance and behaviour, both are on the same level. 
 
 " They are perpetually roving from place to place, either 
 as prompted by caprice or in search of food. They build 
 no houses, and their only covering is the skin of the opos- 
 sum ; but they generally go naked, and even in cold and 
 wet weather sleep on the bare ground, without shelter, in 
 the open air, with only a fire by their side to keep them 
 warm. They live on kangaroos, emus, opossums, snakes, 
 fish, &c. of which kinds of food there is always a plentiful 
 supply. The women are not allowed to partake of the 
 animals procured by their husbands, but left to seek their 
 own subsistence, which chiefly consists of large grubs found 
 at the roots of young trees. 
 
 " They have some notion of a Supreme Being, whom 
 they call Muri'ooberrai, and who, they believe, produces 
 the thunder and lightning ; but they pay him no worship, 
 and seem never to think of him but when it thunders, and 
 then their only sentiment is that of terror. They have also 
 some idea of a future state of existence : they believe that 
 though they ^ tumble down' — the expression which they 
 use for dying — they shall w rise up again ; ? but it will be as 
 human beings in this world. They think, however, that 
 their future condition will be affected by their conduct in 
 the present state, and that he who has killed most of his 
 fellow-men will rise up under the most adverse circum- 
 stances. Murder seems to be the only crime which in 
 their apprehension will be visited with punishment hereafter. 
 These sentiments, however, defective and obscure as they 
 are, have but little practical influence ; and they appear, 
 indeed, never to advert to them but when questioned on 
 the subject. 
 
 M They frequently express an earnest desire to have some 
 person to instruct them in agriculture and to build houses.'" 
 
 To this statement the Committee of the Society em- 
 phatically added : " Either the natives of New Holland 
 
NEW ZEALAND. 231 
 
 must become utterly extinct, or that melancholy result 
 must be averted by the introduction of Christianity among 
 them. It may be hoped that this is the design of the 
 common Parent of all the tribes and nations of men ; and 
 that Christianity may here also have the triumph of arrest- 
 ing the progress of depopulation and death, and of ex- 
 hibiting some of these tribes, the most depraved and hope- 
 less of human beings, among the monuments of its saving- 
 mercy." To this wish every philanthropic mind must 
 breathe a sincere Amen ! 
 
 If the zeal for conversion has for the present but little 
 hope of enlightening the New Hollanders, so much the 
 more pleasing prospects have (since 1818) opened in New 
 Zealand. On the application of the excellent chaplain to 
 the colony, the Jlev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, in 
 New South Wales, the Church Missionary Society has 
 granted the annual sum of five hundred pounds for the sup- 
 port of missions in New Zealand, and the late Governor 
 Macquarie encouraged the benevolent enterprise. Under 
 his presidency, a Society was formed in New Holland (at 
 the beginning of the year 1814) for the express purpose of 
 promoting the diffusion of Christianity and civilization in 
 the numberless islands of the South Sea. 
 
 The two islands of New Zealand, each about 600 miles 
 by an average breadth of 150, covered with lofty, woody 
 mountains, are inhabited by more than one hundred thousand 
 persons, who are naturally warlike and ingenious in the sim- 
 ple wants and relations of life. Their villages, always situ- 
 ated on eminences and surrounded with ramparts, ditches, 
 and palisades, resemble fortresses. Their navigation extends 
 to New Holland. They have successfully cultivated the 
 corn received from Europeans, and grind it with hand-mills 
 also given to them by the latter. They have already be- 
 gun to raise potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, cabbages, 
 onions, and other culinary vegetables. Their gardens are 
 generally laid out in valleys or on gentle declivities. 
 
 The New Zealanders are naturally cruel ; but on the 
 other hand if Europeans have experienced the effects of 
 their ferocity, it cannot be denied that they have too often 
 been exasperated by the outrages committed by the crews 
 of ships which have from time to time visited their coasts 
 
232 SURVEY OF CIIBISTIAKITY. 
 
 It is nevertheless ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt 
 that they are cannibals in the moral sense of the term, for 
 they not only devour from superstitious motives the ene- 
 mies whom they have slain in battle, but regale themselves 
 on human flesh, as a sensual gratification. Though well 
 aware of the abhorrence of the Europeans for this prac- 
 tice, they take no pains to conceal from them their predi- 
 lection for this kind of food. They eat the limbs only of 
 a man ; while the whole body of a female or a child is 
 considered delicious : but it is worthy of remark that 
 they consider the flesh of white men as tough and unpala- 
 table, compared with that of their own countrymen, and 
 attribute its inferiority to the salt habitually eaten by the 
 former with their food. 
 
 Each chief is absolute in his tribe and each tribe is inde- 
 pendent of its neighbour. The different tribes are engaged 
 in almost incessant contentions, and live under perpe- 
 tual apprehension of being destroyed by each other ; there 
 being few tribes that have not, as they conceive, sustained 
 wrongs from some other tribe, which they are constantly 
 on the watch to revenge. The desire of a feast is perhaps 
 an additional incitement to these hostilities. They gene- 
 rally wait for an opportunity to take the adverse party by 
 surprise, and kill all indiscriminately, not sparing even the 
 women and children ; and when successful they either 
 feast immediately on the bodies of their victims, or carry 
 off as many of them as they can to be devoured at home. 
 
 The almost untameable ferocity of these people maybe 
 inferred from the following particulars relative to a chief 
 named Tooi. This man, after a long residence in Eng- 
 land, and though he had returned to New Zealand under 
 the charge of one of the missionaries, still scrupulously 
 adhered to the barbarous prejudices of his country. His 
 conversation with the officers of the English ship, Drom- 
 edary, was a continued boast of the atrocities which he 
 had committed during an excursion with his brother two 
 months before ; and he dwelt with marked pleasure on an 
 instance of his generalship, when, having forced a small 
 party of his foes into a narrow place where there was no 
 pgress, he was enabled to shoot successively twenty-two of 
 ♦hem, while they had not the power to make the slightest 
 
NEW ZEALAND. 23t> 
 
 resistance. To qualify this story he remarked, that 
 though all the dead bodies were devoured by his tribe. 
 u neither he nor his brother ate human flesh, nor did they 
 fight on Sundays." When asked why he did not turn the 
 minds of his people to agriculture, he said, it was impossi- 
 ble, adding : u If you tell a New Zealander to work he 
 falls asleep ; but if you speak of fighting he opens his 
 eyes as wide as a tea-cup ; the whole bent of his mind is 
 war, and he looks upon fighting as sport.'' 
 
 The possession of fire-arms has of late years given to 
 the tribes about the Bay of Islands a superiority which 
 renders them the scourge and terror of the whole country ; 
 and they fit out every summer a predatory expedition com- 
 posed in general of the united strength of three or four 
 chiefs. 
 
 These people have a custom of preserving the heads of 
 the enemies whom they have slain. They bring them back 
 from their wars, in the first instance as trophies, and to be 
 restored in the event of peace, to the party from which 
 they were taken. These heads are baked or steamed to 
 extract the moisture and then dried in a current of air ; 
 and after these processes they appear as perfect as in life ; 
 The natives barter them for a trifle, and many specimens 
 are now in the museums of Europe. 
 
 Notwithstanding the cruelty and vindictive spirit which 
 form prominent traits in the character of the New Zealand- 
 ers, still in their general intercourse with Europeans they 
 have been found hospitable, courteous, and well-disposed. 
 They are indeed irritable, but fond of mirth, dancing, and 
 singing. 
 
 The climate of these islands is temperate and the soil 
 uncommonly fertile. The New Zealand llax, Phormio 
 tenax, the fibres of which are finer and more durable than 
 those of our hemp, and of which the natives make their 
 garments, mats, baskets, cordage, and nets, is a most valu- 
 able gift conferred by Nature on these tribes. Before Eu- 
 ropeans landed on these shores, the New Zealanders had 
 arrived at such a degree of civilization as to live together 
 under different chiefs, to whom the heads of other districts 
 were subordinate, and to have laws relative to private pro- 
 perty. Their respective possessions and even their fishing 
 20* 
 
234 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 places >vere marked out. Theft and adultery wert 
 punished by them with death, but polygamy was allowed. 
 
 Their religious notions have not yet been precisely as- 
 certained. They have priests and priestesses of different 
 classes. They pray, and consider good and ill luck as 
 dispensations of a superior Being. This Being, in order 
 to denote its spirituality, they liken to a shadow, which 
 none can grasp and feel, which created all things, but is 
 itself uncreated and imperishable. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Marsden, the apostle of the New Zea- 
 landers and their first instructor in agriculture, soon after 
 his arrival at Port Jackson and Sydney, became acquainted 
 with chiefs who had come thither from New Zealand. — 
 He treated them kindly, learned something of their lan- 
 guage, gave them maize and wheat for seed, and taught 
 them to till the ground and to make agricultural imple- 
 ments. Seeing the docility of these people, and learning 
 from them how welcome teachers of European arts would 
 be in their country, he purchased a brig, to facilitate the 
 intercourse with them, and in May 1314 sent thither some 
 persons from England, destined for missionaries among 
 the Heathen, to examine the localities. These were so 
 favourably received by King Duaterra at Ranghehoo, that 
 Mr. Marsden resolved the same year to conduct a mis- 
 sionary colony thither. This plan he carried into execu- 
 tion. Duaterra was the sovereign of an extensive terri- 
 tory. The chiefs of four districts were subject to his 
 authority and many others in alliance with him. Not far 
 from Ranghehoo, which consisted of two hundred houses, 
 Marsden bought a plot of land of more than two hundred 
 acres for twelve hatchets. Ahoodee o Gunna, a petty 
 chief to whom the land belonged, publicly declared before 
 all the people that it was now the exclusive property of 
 the white men, and tabooed, that is, religiously conse- 
 crated, to their use. The written contract prepared by the 
 Europeans was signed by the seller, not with his name, 
 but with an exact representation of the fantastic figures 
 with which, according to the custom of his country, his 
 face was tattooed. 
 
 Such was the origin of the first Christian mission in New 
 Zealand. The excellent founder, on his return to Port 
 
MEW ZEALAND. 23l> 
 
 Jackson, was accompanied thither by ten of the natives. 
 They were mostly chiefs of the nation, desirous of acquiring 
 a knowledge of European arts and institutions. 
 
 In a second visit to New Zealand, in 1819, Mr. Marsden 
 formed a second missionary establishment in the Bay of 
 Islands, a large bay on the north-east coast of the northern 
 island, on lands purchased of a chief named Shunghee, near 
 the cpah, or fortified native town of Kiddeekiddee. These 
 lands consist of thirteen thousand acres, and were bought 
 of the chief and his tribe for forty-eight axes. This settle 
 ment has been called Gloucester. 
 
 In the following year, Mr. Kendall, one of the mission 
 aries, on his return to England, brought with him the above- 
 mentioned chief, Shunghee, and another, named Whykato, 
 who received much liberal attention in London, and were 
 admitted to an interview with his majesty : but as these 
 Savages had not made sufficient advances in civilization to 
 enable them to appreciate our institutions and manners^ 
 their visit proved in its consequences detrimental not only 
 to the interests of the missions but to their country in 
 general. 
 
 Shunghee was a man of a warlike spirit, and after his 
 return to New Zealand, in 1821, it appeared that the great 
 object which he and his companion had in view in coming 
 to Europe was to procure arms and ammunition. To aug- 
 ment the stores which they had by some means obtained 
 when in England, they sold at Port Jackson, on their return, 
 the greater part of the clothing and ironmongery with which 
 the Missionary Society had furnished them at a great ex- 
 pense, and purchased muskets, powder, and ball. With 
 these they landed in July in the Bay of Islands, whence, in 
 September, Shunghee set out at the head of a large party, 
 on an expedition undertaken for the purposes of ravage and 
 murder. They returned in December following, after the 
 destruction, it is said, of a thousand of their comparatively 
 defenceless countrymen, upon three hundred of whose bo- 
 dies they feasted in the field. The settlers had the pain to 
 see them come back loaded with the relics of their cruelty, 
 and to witness the murder in cold blood and the devouring 
 i of some of their prisoners. Similar expeditions have from 
 time to time succeeded, but amid these scenes of war and 
 
236 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 bloodshed, the personal security of the missionaries and 
 settlers was not for several years affected. 
 
 In subsequent visits paid by the Rev. Mr. Marsden a 
 third missionary settlement was formed at Pyhea on the 
 south side of the Bay of Islands, since called Marsden's 
 Vale, and he manifested particular anxiety that the impor- 
 tant business of education should be prosecuted with all 
 possible efficiency and despatch. Upon Ins urgent recom- 
 mendation also a seminary was erected near his own house 
 at Paramatta in New South Wales, for the instruction of 
 New Zealand youths, with the children of the missionaries, 
 not merely in the doctrines of Christianity, but also in shoe- 
 makers' and tailors' work, weaving, spinning, and dressing 
 flax, gardening, and farming. 
 
 A fourth settlement has been established at Kauakaua, 
 on the banks of a river of the same name, which falls into 
 the Bay of Islands, and about thirty miles from Kiddeekid- 
 dee. Schools have been established at the two oldest settle- 
 ments, but they suffer great interruption from the continual 
 wars which unsettle both adults and children. Meanwhile, 
 however, the seeds of civilization are scattering among 
 the natives ; their manners, in the neighbourhood of the 
 Europeans, begin to be more peaceable : many of them 
 manifest a strong desire for the education of their chil- 
 dren, and some of the latter are making proficiency in 
 reading and writing. A grammar of their language has 
 been printed, and a small vessel built by the missionaries to 
 facilitate their visits to distant parts of the islands. The 
 success of their agricultural labours and the increase of 
 their cattle cannot fail to prove ultimately of most essen- 
 tial advantage to the country in general. Some of the na- 
 tives indeed have, after their example, begun to grow wheat. 
 
 Recent accounts from this quarter, however, are of a 
 discouraging nature. In 1823 the Wesleyan Missionary 
 Society formed a settlement in a valley about seven miles up 
 a river falling into Whangarooa Bay, north-west of the Bay 
 of Islands, to which they gave the name of Wesley Dale. 
 Here three missionaries and an assistant were stationed. 
 They had erected suitable buildings and two native schools, 
 and were just acquiring a facility in speaking the language, 
 when various circumstances, arising out of the quarrels 
 
NEW ZEALAND. 2c$< 
 
 of the natives, the plunder of an English ship in the Bay. 
 which one of the missionaries exerted himself to rescue, 
 and the death of a neighbouring chief, named George, 
 placed them in a situation peculiarly critical and dange- 
 rous. The notions of satisfaction among the New Zea- 
 landers, life for life, blood for blood, are deep and deadly : 
 the father of George was killed many years since in the 
 affair of the ship Boyd, the destruction of which was insti- 
 gated by George himself, and the notion which haunted 
 him in his last sickness was that he had not taken sufficient 
 satisfaction of the Europeans for his father's life. This 
 satisfaction he left to be executed by his heir, in the plun- 
 der and probable destruction of the missionaries at Wesley 
 Dale. The more friendly natives of the Bay of Islands, 
 Shunghee's people, were at one time determined to fetch 
 them away from George's tribe, and to punish that chief 
 for the plunder of the ship Mercury ; this involved them in 
 new anxieties, and they were for several months in frequent 
 jeopardy of being attacked and massacred. A calmer 
 state ofthings succeeded ; but, in January 1327, fresh dis- 
 turbances took place among the natives, which terminated 
 in the destruction of the settlement at Whangarooa. Seve- 
 ral of the Church missionaries, with a party of natives from 
 Kiddeekiddee, went to the assistance of their friends, 
 whom they brought to the latter place. In these commo- 
 tions it appears that Shunghee, the chief protector of the 
 Church missionaries, was severely wounded ; and those 
 missionaries, though under no fear for their personal safety, 
 were apprehensive that their settlements would share the 
 fate of Wesley Dale. Under these circumstances they 
 deemed it expedient to send to New South Wales every 
 article, not absolutely necessary for present use, but to re- 
 main themselves at their post till absolutely driven away. 
 From subsequent communications, however, it appear- 
 that the natives have been more peaceable, and that the 
 British missionaries have suffered no molestation. 
 
-38 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONVERSION OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDERS TO CHRISTIANITY 
 SURVEY OF THE FRIENDLY AND SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
 
 Of the religions of the ancient world the doctrines of 
 Fohi and Muhamed were certainly propagated in these 
 parts before those of Christianity. The Oranbadjoos, who 
 rove about on the coasts of New Guinea, next to New Hol- 
 land the largest of the islands of South India, are evidently 
 of Asiatic origin. Their person, their language, and their 
 religion, much as each may have gradually degenerated 
 from its primitive type, betray this. And is not the interval 
 between Malacca and New Guinea occupied by an unin- 
 terrupted chain of islands great and small ? But these 
 needy Savages, without permanent abodes, whose dwell- 
 ings are covered canoes, in which they coast along the 
 shore to the mouths of rivers abounding in fish, care very 
 little for the diffusion of their religions derived fromArabia 
 and China. 
 
 So much the more is to be hoped from the efforts of the 
 Society of New South Wales and the great associations in 
 London for the propagation of Christianity in this insular 
 portion of the globe, where the most natural state of man, 
 as in Europe the artificial, is still found in all possible- 
 shades ; where, as in the happy islands of the poets, we 
 meet with tribes living in the lap of plenty and voluptuous- 
 ness, endowed with innocence and simplicity, and also 
 beasts in human shape who devour their own species : 
 where the first germs of social order are discovered in the 
 patriarchal relations and likewise the most barbarous des- 
 potism on earth, as in New Georgia, where every thing 
 belongs to the sovereign of the island and to the subject 
 nothing, not even life, and where certain death awaits him 
 who merely treads on the shadow of the monarch. 
 
 The most brilliant triumph of Christianity in the regions 
 of South India, or Australasia, has been achieved in the 
 
SOCIETY ISLAND.-. 239 
 
 Society Islands. These are divided into two groupes, one 
 of which is now distinguished by the name of the Geor- 
 gian or Windward Islands, consisting of Otaheite and 
 Eimeo, both subject to one king. The other groupe, which 
 retains the name of the Society Islands, comprehends Hua- 
 heine, Raiatea, Tahaa, Borabora. Maupiti or Maurau, and 
 Maiaoiti, which have their respective chiefs, or sovereigns. 
 From the period of their first discovery, these islands were 
 especial favourites with Europeans for the beauty of their 
 scenery, as well as for the elegant persons and mild man- 
 ners of their inhabitants. The mutiny of the crew of the 
 English ship, Bounty, who, after turning their commander 
 adrift, carried the vessel to one of these islands, proved 
 the unexpected cause of a rapid diffusion of European 
 notions, sentiments, and institutions. The mutineers 
 formed connexions with Otaheitean females, and taught 
 their relatives and acquaintance the English language, 
 English manners, and the Christian religion. 
 
 Before any European had visited these islands, the belief 
 in an invisible and almighty Supreme Being prevailed 
 there. To this Being, named Eatooa Rahai, whose 
 throne is the sun, a world far surpassing the earth in 
 splendour, the natives addressed their prayers. In the sun 
 they hoped after the dissolution of the body to find the 
 blissful abode of happy spirits. The nature of Eatooa is 
 mysterious and of three kinds. He is called Tone de Me~ 
 dooa, the father of the world ; they also make mention of 
 Tooa tee teMyde, God in the Son, and of a winged spirit, 
 Mannoo te Hooa. Each island, each family, the sea, has 
 its tutelar deity. In these islands the priests are the ser- 
 vants of the gods and the expounders of their will. They 
 require offerings and frequently human sacrifices at the 
 burial-places or morals, where the spirits of the deceased 
 tarry awhile in the neighbourhood of their former bodies, 
 concealed in the wooden images set up near the graves ; 
 and at the same time a malicious spirit, whom none but the 
 priests can conciliate and direct, takes up his abode in a 
 receptacle in which the sculls of the dead are collected. 
 
 Since the year 1796 the London Missionary Society has 
 bestowed serious attention on the propagation of Chris- 
 tianity in these inlands. The ship Duff was fitted out for 
 
240 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the conveyance of missionaries, and in March 1797 the> 
 arrived at Otaheite. From various causes, however, and 
 among the rest the powerful seductions to which the 
 preachers themselves were exposed, their doctrines gained 
 but little ground. The ignorance of the natives, and the 
 difficulty of making them understand the leading tenets of 
 Christianity, proved another great obstacle. 
 
 A melancholy picture of the state of this island was 
 drawn by Turnbull, who visited it between the years 1800 
 and 1804. The population, estimated by Captain Cook 
 in 1777 at upward of 200,000 souls, had then dwindled, 
 according to Turnbull, to 5000, owing to various diseases 
 and to the unnatural crime of infanticide. Pomarre, the 
 king, when reproached with this practice, alleged in reply, 
 that if all the children born were to be reared to maturity, 
 the island would not furnish sufficient food for their support. 
 The erees, or nobles, formed a society of the most licen- 
 tious and profligate nature. The very principle of their 
 union was a community of their women, and the murder 
 at the moment of birth of all their issue of both sexes. 
 The inferior classes were influenced by the example of 
 these wretches, and it was computed that two-thirds of 
 the births were thus stifled. 
 
 Pomarre, son of the king of that name, who lived at 
 the time when Captain Wilson brought the first mission- 
 aries to the island, succeeded his father in 1803 ; and after 
 that event fixed his residence near the mission-house at 
 Matavai Bay, where he frequently passed whole days in 
 learning to read and write ; but it was long before he ma- 
 nifested any disposition to receive religious instruction. 
 Possessing an intelligent mind and a good disposition, and 
 inclined to religious meditations, Pomarre had been a 
 zealous worshipper of the gods. By his command altars 
 were erected, numberless gifts and offerings made, and 
 even human victims sacrificed to them. One of the mis- 
 sionaries has calculated that he put to death about a 
 thousand persons from motives of piety. As soon as he 
 had learned better notions of divine things he embraced 
 the doctrines of Christianity with equal ardour, and became 
 himself an active apostle among his people, even at the 
 risk of his throne and life. 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 241 
 
 In 1808 the king was involved in a contest with a party 
 of his subjects, who sought to deprive him of his authority. 
 On this occasion the houses and gardens of the mission- 
 aries were destroyed, and they, as well as Pomarre, were 
 obliged to seek refuge in the island of Eimeo. In the 
 following year, as there was no prospect of the king's 
 reinstatement, all the missionaries excepting two repaired 
 to New South Wales, whence rive of them returned in 
 1811 at the urgent solicitation of Pomarre, who was be- 
 ginning to recover his lost power. The king now de- 
 clared his conviction of the truth of the Christian religion, 
 manifested a much warmer attachment to the mission- 
 aries, and sent to them all his family idols, desiring that 
 they would either throw them into the fire, or transmit 
 them to Europe, " that the people of England might see 
 what foolish gods the Otaheiteans formerly worshipped.'" 
 They were accordingly sent to England, and are now pre* 
 served in the museum of the London Missionary Society. 
 
 The influence and example of Pomarre operated with 
 such effect that, in 1814, about fifty of the natives had 
 renounced idolatry and embraced the Christian religion ; 
 and the number of converts increased so rapidly as to 
 amount in the following year to five hundred. Among 
 these were several chiefs and the king's principal coun- 
 sellor, who had assumed in baptism the name of Christo- 
 pher Farefau. The ratiras, or chiefs of districts, the 
 priests of the ancient gods, and all their adherents, beheld 
 with indignation and astonishment the number of the 
 Sure Atooa, or " praying people," as they termed the 
 Christians, increasing in all quarters. They resolved to 
 exterminate them, while Farefau boldly strove by word 
 and deed to suppress the ancient idolatry, and won over 
 ■he chiefs of several neighbouring islands to the sacred 
 cause. At length the champions of the old system, after 
 disagreeing among themselves and partly destroying one 
 another, furiously attacked the Christians during divine 
 service : a battle ensued, in which Pomarre and his ad- 
 herents i::uned a complete victory. Farefau, by the king'fc 
 command, overthrew the morais, the images of the deities, 
 md the holy trees ; and the unexampled clemency with 
 h Pomarre treated the vanquished and their fateilies 
 c 2\ 
 
-42 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 produced a powerful impression on the minds of his foes. 
 In this struggle it was demonstrated that the Christian 
 faith had struck deeper root and spread more widely than 
 its enemies imagined and than the British missionaries 
 were themselves aware of. Many chiefs and priests 
 publicly renounced their old religion and acknowledged 
 their better convictions ; and Pomarre's authority was 
 never afterwards called in question. 
 
 In 1817 the king went over to Eimeo, where a printing- 
 press had been set up, and composed with his own hands, 
 under the direction of the missionaries, the alphabet at 
 the beginning of the Otaheitean spelling-book, being the 
 first operation of the kind ever attempted in his dominions. 
 In July, in the same year, the missionaries stated that the 
 whole of the inhabitants of Otaheite. Eimeo, Tabooya- 
 manoo, Huaheine, Raiatea, Toobouai, Borabora (the 
 birth-place of Farefau, who died in Otaheite in 1818), 
 and Maurua, had renounced idolatry ; that the immolation 
 of human victims and infanticide were suppressed ; that 
 Christianity had become general throughout those islands ; 
 that chapels had arisen instead of the destroyed morais, 
 sixty-six having been built in Otaheite and sixteen in 
 Eimeo ; that the sabbath day was strictly observed ; that 
 about four thousand persons had learned to read and many 
 of them to write ; and that part of the Gospels translated 
 into the native languages was then printing. 
 
 This great work was supported by the Rev. Mr. 
 Marsden with his characteristic activity. So early as the 
 year 1815 he sent from Port Jackson the historical books 
 <>f the New Testament, catechisms, and hymn-books, in 
 i he language of these islands ; and he caused many copies 
 >f the history of the Old Testament in the Otaheitean 
 language to be printed in New South Wales. The 
 London Missionary Society equipped in 1816 eight new 
 missionaries, who took out with them materials for esta- 
 blishing a printing-ofEcc ; and by increasing the number ot 
 presses and erecting numerous schools the progress of 
 civilization was almost incredibly accelerated in Otaheite 
 arid Eimeo. The names of John Davis, William Scott, 
 Henry Nott, James Hay ward, Samuel Tessier, William 
 Henry, Charles Wilson, and Henry Bic.knell, will be justly 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 243 
 
 preserved by history, as those of the first successful 
 apostles of the Christian faith in the Society Islands. 
 
 The principal church built by Pomarre at Papaoa in 
 Otaheite may vie in magnitude, at least, with some of the 
 more eminent temples of Europe, being seven hundred 
 and twelve feet in length, and fifty broad ; and having one 
 hundred and thirty-three windows and twenty-seven doors. 
 It was consecrated in May 1819, in the presence of be- 
 tween five and six thousand of the natives. A few day? 
 afterwards Pomarre appeared in the character of legisla- 
 tor : in a general assembly of the chiefs and people, he 
 su omitted to them a written code of laws which were 
 unanimously approved, and on the succeeding Sunday he 
 was solemnly baptized. 
 
 Who could have anticipated in Captain Cook's time 
 the promulgation of printed laws at Otaheite, and which, 
 as we are assured, the native with few exceptions are 
 capable of reading! These laws are comprised in nine- 
 teen articles under the following heads: — L. Of Murder. 
 2. Of Robbery. 3. Of Depredations committed by 
 Swine. 4. Of Stolen Property. 5. Of Lost Property. 
 6. Of Buying and Selling 7. Of Sabbath- breaking. 
 8. Of Stirring up War. 9. Of a Man with Two Wives. 
 10. Of Wives who were cast orf before the Reception of 
 the Gospel. 11. Of Adultery. 12. Of Forsaking a 
 Wife or Husband. 13. Of not Providing Food for a 
 Wife. 14. Of Marriage, 15 Of Raising False Reports. 
 16. Of the Judges. 17. Of Trying Causes. J8. Of 
 the Courts of Justice. 19 Of the Laws in general. 
 
 The following specimens will serve to show the spirit a& 
 well as the manner in which these laws are conceived. 
 
 " Of Buying and Selling. 
 
 u When a person buys any property, let him consider 
 well before he oives his propertv in exchange for the pro- 
 perty of another. If he exchanges property with another 
 and has taken the exchanged property away and shortly 
 after wishes to have his own returned, his wish shall not 
 be granted unless the other party is agreeable. If any 
 damage be found on the property, which had not beer* 
 
244 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 discovered at the time of exchanging, it may be returned, 
 but if the damage was known at the time of exchanging, 
 it shall not be returned. If a person exchanges property 
 for another that is sick, the sick person shall be allowed 
 to see the property received in exchange, and if he does 
 not like it, it shall be returned. Persons must not under- 
 value or cry down the property of others ; it is very bad. 
 The persons who are buying and selling, let themselves 
 buy and sell, without the interference of those who have 
 nothing at all to do with the matter." 
 
 " Of Sabbath- Breaking. 
 
 " It is a great sin in the eye of God to work on the 
 Sabbath-day. Let that which agrees with the word of 
 God be done, and that which does not, let that be left 
 alone. No houses or canoes must be built, no land must 
 be cultivated, nor any work done ; nor must persons go 
 any long distance on a Sabbath-day. If they desire to 
 hear a missionary preach they may go, although it be a 
 long distance ; but let not the excuse of going to hear the 
 word of. God be the cover for some other business ; let 
 not this be done— it is evil Those who desire to hear 
 missionaries preach on a Sabbath, let them come near at 
 hand on the Saturday ; that is good. Persons on the first 
 offence shall be warned ; but if they be obstinate and 
 persist they shall be compelled to do work for the king." 
 
 " Of Raising False Reports. 
 
 "If a person raises a false report of another, as of mur- 
 der or blasphemy, stealing, or of any thing bad, that per- 
 son commits a great sin The punishment of those who 
 do so is thus : he must make a path four miles long and 
 four yards wide, he must clear all the grass, &c. away and 
 make it a good path. If a person raises a false report of 
 another, but which may be less injurious than that of blas- 
 phemy, &c. he shall make a path one or two miles in 
 length and four yards wide. If a false report be raised 
 about some very trifling affair no punishment shall be 
 awarded When the paths are made, the person who is 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 
 
 ;hc owner of the land where the ways are made shall keep 
 them in repair. Let them he high in the middle, that the 
 water in wet weather may run down on each side. Should 
 the relations of the person who is required to make a path 
 wish to assist him, they are at liberty to do so. The 
 chiefs of the land where the man is at work must provide 
 him food : he must not be ill-treated ; he must not be 
 compelled to work without ceasing from morning till night ; 
 hut when he is tired let him cease and begin again next 
 day ; and when he has finished what he was appointed to 
 do, he has fulfilled bis punishment The judges shall make 
 known to persons raising false reports the punishment they 
 :-hall undergo. 1 ' 
 
 Article sixteen of this code contains the names of the 
 judges, four hundred in number, and the eighteenth and 
 nineteenth prescribe that courts of justice shall be erected 
 all round Otaheite and Eimeo ; that they shall be used 
 solely for the administration of justice ; that a printed copy 
 of the laws shall be posted on every such house of judgment; 
 and that the chiefs in the several districts shall support the 
 execution of them. Murder is made punishable with death, 
 
 The people of Huaheine have gone a step farther. A 
 code of laws, adopted also by the chiefs of the islands of 
 Raiatea and Taha, has been printed there : it consists oi 
 iwenty-five articles, the last of which institutes the trial by 
 jury ! 
 
 At Raiatea, where a mission was commenced in the 
 autumn of 1818, the spot selected for the purpose was then 
 a wilderness ; nor were there more than two or three 
 houses in the district. In less than a year the aspect of 
 the place was totally changed : instead of an almost im- 
 passable wood, it presented a fine open scene, with a range 
 of dwellings extending nearly two miles along the beach 
 and inhabited by a thousand natives. The king had a sub- 
 stantial and commodious house, wattled and plastered, with 
 boarded floors, and divided into several apartments ; and 
 he was the first native of the South Sea Islands who pos- 
 sessed such a habitation. The missionaries strenuously 
 and successfully exerted themselves to induce the people 
 to follow this example, and to abandon the pernicious 
 "$ f om of herding together in numerous families unde^- T -»< 
 21* 
 
1246 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 same roof. They instructed them in the art of boat-build- 
 ing, in sawing wood and in carpenters' and smiths' work ; 
 and established a Society for the Encouragement of the 
 Usefu-1 Arts, and schools for adults and children. It was 
 not long before two bridges of considerable extent, which 
 would do credit to any village in England, were erected in 
 this island. 
 
 Here too the sugar-cane and tobacco are cultivated in 
 enclosed plantations, and the produce of both is of the best, 
 quality. The latter yields three or four crops in the year, 
 the former something more than one, and there is a mill for 
 *hc extraction and manufacture of the sugar. The people 
 have also learned to make excellent salt from sea-water by 
 boiling. Most of the men are expert at making chairs, 
 tables, sofas, and the like, being anxious to possess every 
 article of furniture necessary to enable them to live in the 
 English style. 
 
 The picture of the improvement of the natives of Hua- 
 heine arid their progress in civilization, presented by the 
 missionaries in 1821, is equally pleasing. "Several oJ 
 them," say they, "have finished very neatly plastered 
 dwelling-houses with doors and windows and are boarding 
 their bed-rooms : many other dwellings on the same plan 
 are building. Considerable progress has also been made 
 »n cultivation, many acres around us being enclosed and 
 ■stocked with food of various kinds. Useful tools, pit-saws. 
 &,c. together with paper and writing materials, are in great 
 demand among the people. The females especially art- 
 much improved in their habits and appearance. When 
 f.hey procure a few yards of foreign cloth, it is not as for- 
 merly bound round their loins, but made up into a gown : 
 and they are instructed in needlework, so that a consider- 
 able number at each station are able to make themselves 
 neat and modest dresses. They have been taught also to 
 make neat hats and bonnets in the European form, which 
 *rc now very generally worn. The hats are made of the 
 leaves of a rush very common in the islands, and the bon- 
 ds of the inner bark of the hibiscus." Makine, King of 
 Fluaheine, appears to have been as zealous in promoting 
 he civilization of his people as Pomarre in Otaheife. 
 U Borobonu the natives have made extensive 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 247 
 
 excellent roads, and erected a noble stone pier, which is 
 carried out nearly three hundred and sixty-five feet into 
 the sea. There is another pier at Maurua, from thirty to 
 forty t'ect in width, and extending tive hundred and twenh 
 feet from the shore. 
 
 Among the other sources of improvement to which the 
 missionaries in Otaheite directed their attention was the 
 cultivation of the sugar-cane, cotton, and coffee. Sugar- 
 works were accordingly erected and a tract of land 
 cleared for planting the cane, but this plan was suddenly 
 frustrated, when Pomarre informed the missionaries that 
 the captain of a vessel which had recently touched at the 
 islands had intimated to the natives that, if the concern 
 should prosper, powerful persons would come and esta- 
 blish themselves in the islands, kill or make slaves of the 
 people, and seize their possessions ; and that the captain 
 appealed to what had taken place in the West Indies as a 
 proof of the truth of his affirmation. The king added 
 that, apprehending serious consequences from these alarm- 
 ing reports, he could not consent to the execution of the 
 plan in his islands, unless on a very limited scale; and. 
 in order to satisfy Pomarre and to quiet the minds of the 
 people, it was deemed advisable to relinquish the under- 
 taking altogether. A cotton manufactory, however, has 
 been established in Eimeo ; and a quantity of strong 
 calico, which is preferred by the natives to that brought by 
 ships, has been made there. 
 
 Pomarre, under whose auspices so important a revolu- 
 tion has been affected in this portion of the globe, died in 
 December 1821, at the age of about forty-seven years, soon 
 after the arrival of a deputation sent out by the London 
 Missionary Society, to examine into the state of its settle- 
 ments in the South Seas. His infant son was acknow- 
 ledged to be his successor, and placed for education at the 
 academy established by the missionaries at Bogue's Har- 
 bour, Eimeo, where he too died in January 1827, after an 
 illness of a few days. 
 
 The deputation mentioned above, in their communication 
 to the Directors of the Society, thus express themselves- 
 m the subject of the change which has taken place i.r 
 I Itaheite • — 
 
14$ SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 il A nation of pilferers have become eminently trust" 
 worthy. , A people formerly universally addicted to las- 
 civiousness in all its forms have become modest and vir* 
 tuous in the highest degree. Those who a few years ago 
 despised all forms of religion, except their own horrid and 
 cruel superstitions, have universally declared their appro- 
 bation of Christianity ; study diligently those parts of the 
 Christian Scriptures which have been translated for them, 
 ask earnestly for more and appear conscientiously to regulate 
 themselves by those sacred oracles under the direction of 
 their teachers, whose self-denying zeal and perseverance 
 have been almost as remarkable as the success with which 
 God has been pleased to honour them. 
 
 " Better houses and chapels have been built, or are in pre- 
 paration for being built, at nearly every station — rapid im 
 provement in reading and writing — European dresses gra 
 dually superseding the Taheitian — the chiefs ingeniously 
 and diligently building their own boats in the European 
 form, with European tools— many cultivating tobacco 
 and sugar, and nearly all collecting and preparing cocoa- 
 nut oil. 
 
 " At that time a road intended to go round the island 
 had been made to a considerable extent by persons 
 doomed by the new laws to that labour for misdemea- 
 nours. Formerly there was no road in any part of the 
 island but the narrow winding tracks by which the natives 
 found their way from one place to another." 
 
 Of Huaheine they say : — " Everything bears the mark of 
 great improvement among the natives ; their enclosures, 
 their plastered houses, their manners, and especially their 
 dress, which is as much European as they can obtain by 
 purchase the means of making it. In the noble place 
 of worship, which is well built and plastered, well floored 
 with timber, and of which a considerable part is neatly 
 pewed, the chiefs and great numbers of the people were 
 Iressed quite in the English manner from head to foot/ 
 
 The sentiments of the natives themselves on the im- 
 provement of their condition may be collected from the 
 following passages of addresses, delivered at a genera. 
 meeting of one of the Auxiliary Missionary Societies whi 
 hey have instituted • 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 24 J 
 
 u Let us remember our former state — how many chil- 
 dren were killed and how few kept alive— hut now none 
 are killed ; the cruel practice is abolished. Parents hare 
 now the pleasure of seeing their three, fi\e, and some 
 tbeir ten children, the principal part of which would not 
 have been alive, had not God sent his word to us. 
 
 "Formerly the servants of the king would enter a per- 
 son's house and commit the greatest depredations ; the 
 master would sit as a poor captive and look on, without 
 daring lo say a word : they would seize Ins bundle of .'loth, 
 kill Ins largest pigs, pluck the best of Ins bread-fruit, take 
 the largest of his taros. Ins finest sugar-canes, and the ripest 
 of his bananas, and even pull up the very posts of his house 
 for fire-wood to cook them with. Is there not a man pre- 
 sent who was obliged, and actually did bury his new canoe 
 under the sand, to secure it from these desperate men ? — 
 But now all these customs .ire abolished ; we are now living 
 in peace and without fear. We have no need to place our 
 pigs underneath our beds, and our little rolls of cloth for our 
 pillows, to secure them : our pigs may run about u here they 
 please, and our little property may hang in the different 
 parts of our house and no one touch.es it. We are now 
 sleeping on comfortable bedsteads ; we have now decent 
 seats (sofasj to sit on ; \ve have now neat plastered houses 
 to dwell in, and the little property ws have we can now 
 call our own/ 1 
 
 In this work of civilization the press acts a most impor- 
 tant part, and the missionaries have u£ed great industry in 
 the employment of so powerful an auxiliary. They have 
 printed in the Otaheitean language various elementary 
 works and of some of them large and repeated impressions ; 
 the revised Code of Laws, Reports of the Auxiliary Mis- 
 sionary Society, and nearly the whole* of the books of the 
 New Testament. Other portions of Scripture in the native 
 tongue are in progress, and the compilation of an English 
 and Otafieitean Dictionary is co nmenced A public libra- 
 ry for the Georgian islands has been formed at Brewer's 
 Point, Otaheite : Auxiliary Societies in support of the mis- 
 sions have been (bunded in several of the islands ; and such 
 is the zeal with which they are supported, that the produce 
 of the contributions in 1821, consisting chiefly of cocoa-nut 
 
250 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 oil, added upward of 1800Z. sterling to the funds of the pa- 
 rent institution. 
 
 Such have been the consequences of the introduction of 
 Christianity into these islands ; and it must afTord unfeigned 
 pleasure to every philanthropic mind to learn, that the sub- 
 stantial blessings conferred by it are not only shared by the 
 neighbours of those by whom its doctrines were first em- 
 braced, but are rapidly spreading to more distant quarters. 
 We are assured that there are already twenty-one islands in 
 these seas, in which the Gospel has been embraced and in 
 which not an idolater remains. 
 
 Among the islands in this predicament are the groupes 
 known by the names of die Paumotu; Raivaivai, and Har- 
 vey Islands, in all which the first sends of Christianity have 
 been sown by native teachers from • Haheite. 
 
 The first of these groupes, formerly called Palliser 
 Islands, trie chief of which is \naa, is situated about 250 
 miles east of Otaheite. The second, said to consist of six 
 islands, and named after the principal of them, lies about 
 500 miles southward of the same island; and the harvey 
 Islands, the most important of the three, are distant about 
 600 miles in a west-south-west direction. They consist of 
 eight islands, containing a population exceeding that of the 
 Society Islands by two or three thousand souls, tier© 
 within two years a most extraordinary change lias been 
 effected, and that solely by the ministry of native teachers, 
 eleven of whom are stationed in thisgroUpe. Rarotonga, 
 the inhabitants of which are estimated at between six and 
 seven thousand, was formerly governed by three kings, or 
 principal chiefs, between whom frequent and sanguinary 
 wars were Waged ; but since the introduction of Christianity, 
 the whole authority is vested by universal consent in one of 
 the three, and thus contention for power, that apple of dis- 
 cord, has been wisely cast away by these islanders. Can- 
 nibalism, infanticide, ami idolatry have erased ; and their 
 principal idol has been sent to England and deposited in 
 the museum of the London Missionary Society. Chapels 
 have been erected throughout the groupe, schools estab- 
 lished, numerous plastered dwellings built, and many of 
 them provided with furniture in the European fashion ; the 
 people are decently clothed and industrious in the cultiva, 
 
FRIENDLY ISLANDS. 251 
 
 lion of the ground ; nay, in the island of Aitutake, they 
 have already constructed a coral pier, '>00 feet in length, 
 and 18 in breadth. At Mautii, where the frigate La Blonde 
 touched on her return from the Sandwich islands, her com- 
 mander, Lord Byron, and his officers, were highly pleased 
 with the neatness of the church and dwellings of the native 
 teaches and the state of the people in general. 
 
 According to the latest accounts received from the South 
 Seas, preparations are making to plant native teachers in 
 the Marquesas, the I'eejee, and the Tonga or Friendly 
 IslanJs. it was at Tongataboo, the principal of the latter, 
 that in 17; 7 ten missionaries were settled by the London 
 Missionary Society, three of whom fell victims to intestine 
 commotions and the ferocity of some of the natives. Since 
 that period we have received a very circumstantial account 
 of the Character, manners, customs, language, and religion 
 of these people from the pen of Mr. William Mariner, who. 
 during a residence of some years in this groupe, enjoyed 
 peculiarly favourable opportunities of making himself inti- 
 mately acquainted with them. He speaks in high terms of 
 the extreme cleanliness, the extraordinary ingenuity, and 
 the many excellent qualities, of the Tonga islanders ; among 
 whom much greater respect is paid to the sex, and the fe- 
 male character is in consequence far more estimable, than 
 in the other islands of the South Seas to which the light of 
 Christianity has not yet penetrated. Here have long sub- 
 sisted firmly established social relations, princes, gradations 
 of ranks, a regular agriculture, traffic by barter, and respect 
 for property. Here is found the belief in superior and infe- 
 rior deities and in immortality : but here too are found 
 greedy and ambitious priests and human sacrifices. 
 
 These accounts also state that between forty and fifty 
 native teachers from the Georgian and Society Islands are 
 already engaged in communicating the Gospel to the in- 
 habitants of islands more or less distant from their own \ 
 and at least fifty more are ready to go forth on the same 
 important mission. 
 
 While this extraordinary revolution is proceeding in the 
 ^outh Pacific, a change not les3 astonishing has been com- 
 menced in the Sandwich Islands, in the North, the largest 
 of which, Owhyhee, or as it is now written, Hawaii, ac 
 
252 SURVEY OF CIIKISTIAN-ITY. 
 
 quired a melancholy celebrity by the death of Captain 
 Cook, the great circumnavigator. The groupe consists of 
 ten islands, two of which, however, are but bare uninhabited 
 rocks The population of the other eight, estimated by 
 Cook at 400,000, Las been reduced by w ar, pestilence, and 
 vice, and is now estimated at between 130,000 and 150,000, 
 of which number Hawaii contains 85.000, and Oahu, or 
 Woahoo, 20,000. 
 
 The narrative of Captain Cook's third voyage introduced 
 to the civilized world a young chief, whose ambition, se- 
 conded by his politic encouragement of European settlers, 
 had raised him, at the time of Vancouver's visit, in 1794, 
 to the sovereignty of Hawaii. With a view probably to 
 confirm and consolidate his newly acquired authority, 
 Tammehameha, in an assembly ol his principal chiefs on 
 board Vancouver's ship, the Discovery, made a ibrmal ces- 
 sion of the island to the king of Great Britain, with the un- 
 derstanding, that no interference should take place in the 
 religion, government, and domestic economy of the natives. 
 He then began to direct his attention towards the creation 
 of a naval force, for the purpose of prosecuting his plans 
 against the other islands, which were at that time governed 
 by independent chiefs He purchased fire-arms and ships 
 of the English and x\itiericans, built smaller vessels himself, 
 and subdued the islands of Maui, Morokai, and Woahoo, in 
 the latter of which he afterwards fixed his residence. The 
 chief of Tauai voluntarily Submitted, and thus by degrees 
 the whole groupe was reduced under the authority of Tarn 
 mehameha. 
 
 At the period of Kotzebue's visit to the Sandwich 
 Islands, this sovereign possessed a large three-masted ship 
 and a brig capable of carrying eighteen guns ; and his resi- 
 dence at Honoruru, in the island of Woahoo, was defended 
 by a fort mounting thirty pieces of cannon, and guarded 
 night and day by two hundred men. Here he lived in the 
 European fashion, and had engaged in his service manyEhg 
 lish and Americans, whom he paid in lands, to which a 
 certain number of the natives were attached. In the 
 prosecution of his plans Tammehameha was strenuously 
 supported by Karaimokoo, governor of Woahoo, who wa- 
 familiarly named by the English, Billy Pitt, on accounl ol 
 iiis influence with the king. 
 
SANDWICH ISLANDS. 2 > r 
 
 Tammehamcha expired at an advanced age, in the 
 island of Hawaii in March 1819. Aware of his approach- 
 ing dissolution, he assembled round him the chiefs of the 
 different islands, and exhorted them to hold sacred his 
 useful institutions, " for which," said lie, " we are indebted 
 to the white men who have come to reside among us.'' 
 lie enjoined them most particularly to respect these stran 
 gers, to hold their property inviolate and to continue to 
 them the rights and privileges which he had conferred. 
 He appointed his son, Riho-riho, his successor, and left 
 half a million of dollars, chiefly accumulated by traffic 
 vith Europeans, besides goods and armed merchant- vessel? 
 to a like amount. 
 
 In consequence of the accounts of the change pro- 
 duced in Otaheite and the neighbouring isles successively 
 brought to the Sandwich Islands, the chiefs of Hawaii. 
 Woahoo, and Tauai, renounced their idols in 1813, and 
 committed them with every vestige of idolatry to the 
 flames. In the following year missionaries from the Uni- 
 ted States of America arrived at Woahoo and formed es 
 tablishments in that and two other Islands. 
 
 In 1822 the members of the deputation sent by the 
 London Missionary Society to the South Seas were in- 
 duced to accept the offer of a free passage from Huaheinc 
 to the Sandwich Islands, made to them by Captain Kent, 
 of his Majesty's cutter, Mermaid, and took with them a 
 missionary, Mr. Ellis, and two native teachers, with the 
 intention of leaving them at the Marquesas on their return. 
 On their arrival at Karakakooa Bay, Hawaaii, Kooakeene, 
 governor of the island, and brother-in-law to Riho-riho, 
 '•xpressed an earnest desire that they mi^ht settle there, 
 as he wished to be instructed in the knowledge of the true 
 trod, having already received some information on the sub- 
 ject of the Christian religion from an Otaheitean. The 
 natives in general manifested the like desire for religious 
 "instruction and to he taught to read and write. 
 
 Captain Kent's real errand was to deliver to king Tarn- 
 mehameha a schooner presented to him by his Britannic 
 Majesty, as a token of acknowledgment for the uniform 
 attention paid by him to English vessels touching at his 
 islands for refreshments. Before these instructions could 
 22 
 
254 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be carried into effect, the old king had been succeeded by 
 his son Riho-riho, who resided in Woahoo, and thither 
 the Mermaid of course proceeded. 
 
 Tamoree, the king or principal chief of Tauai, who 
 had shown the greatest kindness to the American missiona- 
 ries from their first arrival in his island, happened to be just 
 at this time at Woahoo. A native of Otaheite, who had left 
 his country when a boy and been absent from it above thirty 
 years, held the post of steward to a brother ofihe queen's. 
 This man, hearing of the arrival of some of his country- 
 men at Woahoo, invited them to his house and discovered 
 in conversation that the wife of one of them, named Au- 
 na, was Ins own sister. In consequence of this discovery, 
 the king and queen of Tauai invited the Otaheiteans to be 
 their guests, and made particular inquiry concerning the 
 state of things in the Society Islands. The result was an 
 earnest solicitation that Auna and his wife might be per- 
 mitted to remain in the Sandwich Islands, to instruct the 
 people " in the word of God and the good way to heaven." 
 Xot only was this request complied with, but it was agreed 
 that Mr. Ellis should fetch his family from Huaheine and 
 also settle in the country. This missionary accordingly 
 applied himself with diligence to the study of the language, 
 and, from its close affinity to the Otaheitean, he was able 
 in two months to speak and to preach in it with ease and 
 fluency. 
 
 It was not long before Riho-riho declared his formal ac- 
 ceptance of wt the good word," and himself, his wives, and 
 a great number of chiefs, were receiving instruction in 
 reading and writing, so that the royal residence and the 
 houses of the chiefs had the appearance of school-rooms. 
 Before the deputation left the Sandwich Islands the king 
 and queen of Tauai, accompanied by Auna, made a tour 
 round the island of Hawaii, during which above a hundred 
 idols were discovered at one place, in caves situated 
 among the mountains, where they had been concealed on 
 the formal abolition of idolatry in 1819; these were all 
 burned together, and many more were destroyed in other 
 parts of the Island. 
 
 In the same year (1822), an American captain, name^ 
 Gardner, thus described the state of these Islands : " Th& 
 
SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
 
 255 
 
 Sandwich Islands begin to have a considerable traffic and 
 the natives are making rapid strides in civilization. For 
 several years past they have been visited by so many En- 
 glish and American ships that they are gradually adopting 
 our manners and relinquishing their own. The bow and 
 the spear are no longer to be seen ; the harsh war-sound 
 of the Triton's horn has ceased to be heard, as have also 
 the screams of the victim destined to the slaughter. Idola- 
 try is at an end . the bells of the churches alone break the 
 silence of the Sabbath, and the mild beams of Christianity 
 have ahead) begun to operate in these children of nature. 
 Several missionaries from the United States reside among 
 them : they have founded a school where many of the 
 youth receive instruction in reading, writing, drawing, &x., 
 which together with the religious exhortations at church, 
 contributes daily to exalt and refine the moral character 
 of these people.'' 
 
 The natives possessed at that time ten ships built and 
 equipped in the European fashion, none of which is under 
 1 20 tons burden, besides a great number of schooners 
 and sloops, employed in the conveyance of sandal-wood 
 and provisions from one island to another. Most of these 
 were manned by natives, who make excellent sailors. 
 While Captain Gardner was at VVoahoo, one f their ves- 
 sels, manned entirely by natives, but commanded by a 
 white, returned from a voyage to Kamtsehatka. In ex- 
 change for a cargo of salt wisich she had carried thither, 
 this ship brought hack smoked jsalmon, cables, linen, hard- 
 ware, and other articles, and likewise a written grant from 
 the Russian governor of a large tract of land to the king 
 of the Sandwich islands. 
 
 The visit of Riho-riho and his queen to England, in 
 1323, was expected to give in its effects a powerful im- 
 pulse to the cause of religion and civilization in these 
 islands ; for which reason the decease of both in London 
 was to be the more lamented. Their remains were convey- 
 ed to their own country in his Majesty's frigate I ,a Blonde, 
 commanded by Lord Byron ; and on the day of their 
 arrival at Woahoo, the survivors of their suite, together 
 with the chiefs and a large concourse of people, attended 
 divine service. When it was over, Boki, brother of Ka« 
 
£56 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 raimokoo, who had accompanied the king to Europe as a 
 sort of chamberlain, called the attention of the assembly 
 to a recommendation which, he said, had been addressed 
 to him by the King of England, " to return to his country 
 to cultivate general and religious instruction himself, and 
 to endeavour to enlighten and reform the people." This 
 communication made a deep impression on all present, 
 and a new impulse was given to measures in progress for 
 the civilization of these islanders, which has led to the 
 most favourable results. 
 
 According to the latest accounts, the mission here 
 continues to prosper. In April 1826, at an examination 
 of the schools held at Honoruru, which is now increased 
 to a large town, such evidences of improvement were ex- 
 hibited as excited great surprise in the foreign visitants. 
 On this occasion, the children were assembled from a 
 distance of* fourteen miles round ; the number of schools 
 was sixty-nine, of native teachers sixty-six, and of scholars 
 upward of two thousand four hundred. At the same date 
 twenty thousand persons were under some kind of in- 
 struction in the different islands ; about half this number 
 can read well and eight hundred or one thousand write a 
 legible hand. 
 
 The young king now (1828) fifteen years of a<je, and 
 his sister a year younger, are decided promoters of Chris- 
 tianity. The chiefs, following their example, manifest 
 <rreat zeal in the erection of places of worship, six of 
 which are building in the island of Maui only. Schools 
 also are rapidly increasing in all quarters. A translation 
 of the Gospel of St. Matthew is finished, and Karaimo- 
 koo, who acted as regent after the death of lUho-riho, 
 till his own decease in J 827, applied to the chiefs of the 
 Society Islands for Otaheitean books and a few good 
 teachers. 
 
 A prinling-press is still wanting in these islands, to 
 second the labours of the American missionaries, who 
 are assisted by three Otaheitean teachers. The moral 
 effects of their exertions are abundantly evident, and 
 though they have had to contend with difficulties, they 
 eel assured that a good work has been commenced, 
 which they confidently expect to extend itself till the 
 whole of these lands shall be blessed. 
 
FlTCAIRs's ISLAISD. 267 
 
 I cannot conclude this survey of the present state ol 
 Christianity in the South Seas, without adverting to the 
 recent discovery on one of its islets of a little community, 
 which has not needed any missionary for its conversion. 
 I allude to the half-British family, found on Pitcairn's 
 Island, situated south-west of the Marquesas, in latitude 
 25° south and 13° west longitude from Greenwich, and 
 no more than six miles long and three broad. De- 
 scendants from some of the mutineers who, in 1789. 
 possessed themselves of the British armed ship, Bounty, 
 and of Otaheitean women, their existence remained abso- 
 lutely unknown till, in 1808, an American ship chanced 
 to touch at the island ; but it was twelve years later before 
 any circumstantial account of them was obtained. The 
 narrative of the visit paid to the island by Captains Sir 
 Thomas Staines and Pipon, in the Briton and Tagus 
 frigates, and the delightful picture of the state of its truly 
 religious and innocent inhabitants, consisting at that time 
 of about forty-six persons, besides infants, must be too 
 fresh in the recollection of every reader to need repetition 
 here. 
 
 The following reflections, though they have already ap- 
 peared elsewhere,* will not i trust be deemed an inappro- 
 priate termination to this chapter :-- 
 
 There is not perhaps any portion of the globe that 
 presents at this moment a spectacle so full of interest to 
 the contemplative mind as the islands scattered over the 
 vast ocean interposed between the Asiatic and American 
 continents. Half a century ago many of these islands 
 were scarcely known even by name to the civilized world , 
 and most of them, though indeed casually seen by earlier 
 mariners, had never been explored by Europeans, till the 
 peaceful expeditions equipped by the British government 
 in the early part of the reign of the late king, and the 
 indefatigable researches of our great navigator, Captain 
 Cook, exhibited their inhabitants in all the freshness of a 
 new discovery, and opened to the philosopher a fertile 
 theme of inquiry and speculation. 
 
 * See the division of The world in Miniature relating to th* 
 South Sea Inland*.— -Preface, 
 
!58 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 In all these tribes, how distant soever from each other, 
 much the same habits and manners and a nearly equal 
 degree of barbarism were found to prevail. With the 
 benevolent design of improving their condition, the officers 
 of our ships industriously introduced among them the 
 most serviceable of our domestic animals, to which they 
 were utter strangers, and such generally useful vegetable 
 productions as were best adapted to the soil and climate 
 of their respective islands. The intercourse with Euro- 
 peans, which from this time became more frequent, served 
 to make these Savages acquainted with the superiority of 
 their visiters in all those arts that tend to the preservation 
 and embellishment of Hie. An eager desire to possess 
 themselves of our mechanical instruments and a spirit of 
 imitation were the natural consequences of this im- 
 pression. The change thus gradually operating among 
 them was accelerated by the establishment i.isome of the 
 islands of missionaries, whose religious labours, however, 
 seemed for a long series of years to be totally fruitless. 
 Their perseverance has, nevertheless, been crowned with 
 a result surpassing the most sanguine expectations ; and a 
 revolution, which, we trust, will extend over the whole of 
 the Great Ocean, is now in rapid progress among some of 
 its tribes Among Savages who, a short time since, were 
 but a few degrees re.noved from the state of nature, 
 printing-presses have been established — written laws pro- 
 mulgated — the trial by jury adopted — the rudiments of 
 navies formed — regular roads marie — piers constructed — 
 churches built — Societies for the dissemination of the 
 Scriptures and the encouragement of the arts instituted — 
 and the atrocious cruelties of the ancient superstition have 
 yielded to the beneficent influence of the Gospel of 
 Christ! 
 
 Sincerely as we should rejoice in such a change, by 
 whomsoever effected, we must confess that it heightens our 
 gratification to find such wonders accomplished through 
 the instrumentality of Englishmen, and much of a British 
 spirit and British feelings diffused along with these im- 
 provements. The extension of that spirit and those 
 feelings to the remotest corners of the globe we hail with 
 cordial exultation, not merely because England is the land 
 
CONCLUSION. 259 
 
 of our birth ; but because we are convinced that institu- 
 tions arising out of them are better calculated to promote 
 the liberty, prosperity, and happiness, of mankind, than 
 those of any other nation under the face of heaven. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have glanced rapidly at the different regions of the 
 globe and their numerous nations, that we might take a 
 general survey of the present diffusion of the Christian faith 
 among them. To the Christian philosopher this picture, 
 historically interesting, is alike a subject of depression and 
 exultation ; an excitement of greater expectations, more 
 profound convictions, more philanthropic wishes. 
 
 The knowledge of and belief in divine things are the 
 sacred property of every mortal. The wisest of men 
 possesses them ; the stupid Savage holds them fast, and 
 elevates himself by means of them. This is the everlast- 
 ing self-revelation of God in his children — this the irre- 
 fragable evidence that we are of his race, spirits sprung 
 from the holy, the infinite, the primitive spirit of the 
 universe — this the divine inspiration, that we know our 
 immortality ! 
 
 Of all who ever lived upon earth — of the philosophers 
 of India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Arabia — none ever had 
 so clear a view of the profundity of the evidence of God, 
 none so fully expounded the relation and connexion of the 
 spiritual world with the Supreme Being, as Jesus of 
 Nazareth. In him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead ; and 
 his revelations flash like rays of light through the darkness 
 of the realm of spirits. He had a right to say : " The 
 world shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." 
 
 The various churches which at present exist, whatever 
 they may be, as they gradually sprang up, so they shall 
 gradually grow old : the light from God is immutable. 
 
>60 
 
 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Churches are the offspring of the times and like them 
 change their forms ; but religion — the relation of spirits 
 to God — is, like the law which produces the appearances 
 of Nature, unaffected by the change of time and its phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Meanwhile, let the missionary, whether Catholic or 
 Protestant, whether Jesuit, Quaker, Methodist, or Mora- 
 vian, preach what he will to the heathen, something divine 
 is always enclosed in the external husk of his doctrines. 
 This will remain, this will continue to operate and to en- 
 lighten, while the husk is decaying and mouldering 
 into dust. 
 
 We spirits are not citizens of the earth but of the city 
 of God, called the universe, and our life fills not merely a 
 moment but eternity. In this exalted position, what can 
 we do more worthy of our destination than, like Christ 
 and by his word, to release spirits from the shackles of 
 error, and to bring them nearer unto God? As every man 
 rejoices that he is not a brute, that lie has not remained 
 an infant ; as parents rejoice to advance their children in 
 knowledge : so it ought to be the delight of all adult spirits 
 to assist the progress of their junior fellows. 
 
 Religious darkness still rests on a great part of the po- 
 pulation of Europe itself; a Christian paganism still stu- 
 pefies the great majority of the lower classes of the peo- 
 ple. 'Think of the barbarism of Asia, the savage state of 
 the Africans, the forlorn condition of the interior of Amer- 
 ica, the altars of Australasia stained with human blood ' 
 There is no want of scope for the champions of the word 
 of God ; and if the sketch here presented shall have the 
 effect of impressing the mind of any philanthropic individ- 
 ual with the importance of befriending the efforts of those 
 heralds of Christianity and civilization, 1 shall bless the 
 hours devoted to the composition of the preceding pages 
 
 THE END. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 
 QBp a. 
 
 
 
 t PN|p 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
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